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BOHEMIA  UNDER  HAPSBURG 
MISRULE 


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BOHEMIA  UNDER 
HAPSBURG  MISRULE 


A  Study  of  the  Ideals  and  Aspirations  of  the  Bohemian  and 

Slovak  Peoples,  as  they  relate  to  and  are  affected 

by  the  great  European  War 


EDITED  BY 

THOMAS  6aPEK 

Author  of  "  Slovaks  of  Hungary,"  etc. 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming    H.    Revell    Company 

LONPON  ANP  EOINBORGH 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


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New  YdricVM^  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicagb:   lizs'  N.  Wabash  Ave. 

; Toronto;  "25  rRrchmond  St.,  W. 

•Lorldbni  ii •Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:   100  Princes  Street 


ISebicateb 

To  the  Cause  of 
Bohemian-Slovak  Freedom 


"  /  trust  in  God  that  the 
Government  of  Thine  affairs  will  again 
revert  to  Thee,  O  Bohemian  People!** 

John  Amos  Comenius. 

(In  exile.) 


PREFACE 

THE  object  of  this  volume  is  to  make  Bohemia 
and  her  people  better  known  to  the  English- 
speaking  world.  The  average  English- 
man's and  American's  knowledge  of  Bohemia  is 
very  vague.  It  is  only  within  recent  years  that 
Anglo-American  writers  have  begun  to  take  a 
deeper  interest  in  her  people.  Among  the  more 
prominent  students  of  Bohemian  contemporary  life 
should  be  mentioned:  Will  S.  Monroe,  Emily  G. 
Balch,  and  Herbert  Adolphus  Miller,  in  the  United 
States;  and  A.  R.  Colquhoun,  Richard  J.  Kelly, 
F.  P.  Marchant,  James  Baker,  Wickham  H.  Steed, 
Charles  Edmund  Maurice,  W.  R.  Morfill,  and  R. 
W.  Seton- Watson  in  England.  Count  Liitzow  has 
written  in  English  a  number  of  works  on  Bohemian 
matters. 

While  it  is  yet  too  early  to  foresee  the  precise 
results  of  the  Great  War,  one  may  judge  of  coming 
events  by  the  shadows  they  cast  before  them.  A 
close  observer  of  the  Austrian  shadows  is  justified 
in  thinking  that  the  Bohemian  people,  so  long  sup- 
pressed, stand  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  destiny. 
This  destiny  points  to  the  restoration  of  their  an- 
cient freedom.    If  the  Allies  win — and  every  loyal 

7 


8  PREFACE 

son  of  the  Land  of  Hus  fervently  wishes  that 
their  arms  might  prevail,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  Bohemian  soldiers  are  constrained  to  fight  for 
the  cause  of  the  two  Kaisers — Bohemia  is  certain 
to  re-enter  the  family  of  self-governing  European 
nations.  The  proclamation  which  the  Russian 
Generalissimo  addressed  to  the  Poles  may  be  said 
to  apply  with  equal  force  to  the  Bohemians :  "  The 
hour  has  sounded  when  the  sacred  dream  of  your 
fathers  may  be  realized.  .  .  .  Bohemia  will  be 
born  again,  free  in  her  religion,  her  language,  and 
autonomous.  .  .  .  The  dawn  of  a  new  life  begins 
for  you.  ...  In  this  glorious  dawn  is  seen  the  sign 
of  the  cross,  the  symbol  of  suffering  and  the  resur- 
rection of  a  people." 

At  the  close  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War, 
Frenchmen  erected  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  in 
Paris  the  Statue  of  Strassburg,  which  they  have 
kept  draped,  as  a  sign  of  mourning  for  the  loss  of 
their  beloved  Alsace-Lorraine.  The  Bohemians 
have  grieved  for  their  motherland  much  longer 
than  the  French  for  the  "  Lost  Provinces." 
Bohemia  put  on  her  mourning  garb  in  1620,  the 
year  her  rebel  army  was  defeated  by  the  imperial- 
ist troops  of  Ferdinand  IL,  at  the  Battle  of  White 
Mountain  near  Prague,  the  capital  of  the  kingdom. 
May  it  not  be  hoped  that  the  joyous  moment  is  near 
when  her  sons  can  substitute  for  the  black  and  yel- 


PREFACE  9 

low  of  Austria  the  red  and  white  of  Bohemia — the 
colors  that  Charles  Havlicek  loved  so  well.  "  My 
colors  are  red  and  white,"  declared  this  fearless 
patriot  to  his  Austrian  tormentors.  "  You  can 
promise  me,  you  can  threaten  me,  but  a  traitor 
I  shall  never  be." 

Never  during  the  three  hundred  years  of  Aus- 
trian misrule  were  conditions  so  propitious  for 
throwing  off  the  shackles  of  oppression  as  now. 
In  the  darkest  hours  of  national  humiliation,  the 
children  of  Hus  and  of  Komensky  (Comenius)  did 
not  despair.  "  We  existed  before  Austria," 
Palacky  used  to  tell  them,  "  and  we  shall  survive 
her."  May  not  the  words  of  the  "  Father  of  his 
Country,"  as  Palacky  was  affectionately  called  by 
his  countrymen,  come  true,  in  view  of  what  is  tak- 
ing place  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  to-day? 

With  what  form  of  government  would  Bohemia 
make  her  re-entry  into  the  European  family  of  na- 
tions— as  a  free  state,  as  a  dependency  of  Russia, 
as  a  ward  of  the  Allies,  or  incorporated  in  a  federa- 
tion of  the  states  remaining  to  the  Hapsburg  Em- 
pire? 

It  was  a  favorite  theory  of  Palacky  that  the  Aus- 
trian nations  would,  for  their  own  protection,  have 
to  create  an  Austria,  if  she  were  ever  destroyed. 
But  what  Palacky  has  said  may  no  longer  be  true, 
because  the  events  of  191 4  have  created  issues  and 


10  PREFACED 

opened  up  possibilities  undreamt  of  in  his  times. 
Palacky,  let  it  be  understood,  had  in  mind  a  Con- 
federated Austria  that  should  form  a  bulwark  for 
Small  races  against  German  expansion  from  the 
north  and  the  west. 

It  has  been  intimated  that  the  Allies  might  agree 
to  create  Bohemia  and  Hungary  as  independent 
buffer  states  to  curb  German  aggression,  just  as 
Belgium  and  Holland  are  buffer  states  between 
Germany  and  France.  If  this  war  has  shown  any- 
thing, it  has  demonstrated  the  usefulness  of  a  small 
state  like  that  of  the  Belgians.  Albania,  it  will  be 
recalled,  had  been  brought  into  being  by  Austria 
and  Italy,  not  for  humanitarian  reasons,  we  may 
be  sure,  but  to  menace  and  weaken  Serbia,  of 
whose  growth  they  were  jealous. 

Another  probability  is  that  Russia  might  de- 
mand, as  one  of  the  prizes  of  war,  the  cession  of  the 
northern  part  of  Austria-Hungary,  which  is  wholly 
Slavic.  She  might  contend  that  she  could  not  carry 
out  her  traditional  policy  of  guardianship  of  the 
Slavs,  unless  her  kinsfolk  came  under  her  influence, 
if  not  actually  under  her  rule. 

Francis  Josef  waged  two  wars  in  the  past,  both 
of  which  ended  disastrously  for  the  empire.  Yet 
from  both  of  these  wars  good  has  come  to  his  sub- 
jects. The  campaign  in  Italy,  which  resulted  in 
the  defeat  of  the  Austrians  at  Magenta  and  Sol- 


PREFACE  11 

ferino  in  1859,  dealt  a  severe  blow  to  the  bureau- 
cracy, liberating,  incidentally,  the  Italians  who  were 
trampled  under  foot  by  Radecky,  As  a  result  of 
the  war  with  Prussia  in  1866,  the  Magyars  came  to 
their  own.  Hungarian  autonomy  dates  from  1867. 
Now  it  is  the  turn  of  the  Bohemians  to  profit  from 
Austria's  predicament. 

Self-government  is  not  only  an  ideal  but  a  neces- 
sity to  Bohemians.  Why  should  Bohemia,  in  addi- 
tion to  paying  for  her  own  needs,  make  good  the 
deficits  of  lands  which  are  passive,  and  in  whose 
domestic  aflfairs  she  has  no  greater  interest  than  the 
State  of  New  York  has,  for  instance,  in  the  local 
constabulary  of  Nevada?  Year  after  year  Bo- 
hemians justly  complain  that  Vienna  wrings  mil- 
lions in  taxes  from  them  that  it  spends  on  lands 
that  are  passive.  It  is  partly  this  feature  of  the 
case,  the  high  revenue  flowing  from  the  Bohemian 
Kingdom,  which  has  made  Vienna  hostile  to  the 
home  rule  agitation.  Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose, 
however,  that  if  Austria  could  not  wholly  suppress 
the  national  aspiration  of  Bohemians  in  times  of 
peace,  under  normal  conditions,  she  is  more  likely 
to  accomplish  it  if  she  returns  home  from  the  war 
exhausted,  humiliated,  perchance  vanquished? 

It  may  seem  hazardous  to  forecast  Austria's 
future  in  the  event  of  the  Allies  winning.  But  this 
much  is  already  apparent,  that  the  Austria  of  19 14, 


1«  PREFACE 

the  government  of  which  rested  on  the  mediaeval 
idea  that  one  white  race  was  superior  to  another 
white  race,  is  doomed  to  perish.  Austria  needed 
a  crushing  blow  from  without,  such  as  a  lost  war, 
to  send  toppling  the  ramshackle  structure  that  has 
menaced  for  so  long  a  time  the  security  of  the 
Slavic  inhabitants.  For,  though  rent  by  internal 
discord,  the  monarchy  obviously  lacked  forces 
powerful  enough  to  effect  its  own  redemption.  If 
the  Teutonic  forces  are  beaten,  the  logical  sequel 
will  be  the  breakdown  of  the  Germanic  hegemony 
and  a  corresponding  rise  of  Slavism.  With  Poland 
resuscitated  and  Serbia  strengthened,  Vienna,  it 
is  certain,  will  be  powerless  to  hold  the  Bohemians 
down. 

But  no  matter  what  may  happen,  whether  Aus- 
tria-Hungary will  remain  Hapsburg,  whether  the 
Allies  will  impose  their  will  on  her  destiny,  or 
whether  the  Russians  will  become  the  masters  of 
the  North  Slavs,  let  us  hope  that  the  future  map- 
makers  will  not  be  military  conquerors,  as  was  the 
case  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  in  1814,  or  states- 
men of  the  Bismarck  type,  who,  at  the  Berlin  Con- 
gress in  1878,  were  determined  to  separate  the  peo- 
ple of  one  race,  instead  of  uniting  them.  Let  the 
map-makers  be  ethnologists  who  will,  wherever 
practicable,  deliminate  boundaries  according  to 
racial,  not  political  lines,  giving  German  territory 


PREFACE  18 

to  the  Germans,  Magyar  territory  to  the  people  of 
that  race,  Slavic  lands  to  the  Slavs. 

Bohemia  would  not  assume  the  serious  task  of 
self-government  as  an  inexperienced  novice.  Bo- 
hemia is  one  of  the  oldest  states  in  Central  Europe. 
As  a  kingdom  she  antedates  the  German  kingdoms, 
not  excepting  Prussia,  Saxony,  Bavaria.  Some  of 
these  were  yet  minor  states  when  she  already  played 
a  conspicuous  role  in  tlie  affairs  of  Europe.  In 
point  of  population  the  United  States  of  Bohemia — 
including  Bohemia  herself,  Moravia,  Silesia,  and 
Slovakland — would  have  within  her  borders  a 
population  numbering  about  12,000,000.  The 
combined  area  of  the  three  first-named  states  is 
almost  twice  the  size  of  Switzerland.  Prague,  the 
capital,  had  in  19 10  581,163  inhabitants.  As  a 
wealth-providing  and  revenue-yielding  country 
Bohemia  stands  unrivalled  among  the  Hapsburg 
States.  T.  C. 

New  York 


CONTENTS 

I.    Have  the  Bohemians  a  Place  in  the 

Sun? 17 

Thomas  Capek. 

11.    The  Slovaks  of  Hungary      .       .       .113 
Thomas  Capek. 

in.    Why  Bohemia  Deserves  Freedom  .       .    123 
Professor  Bohumil  Simek. 

IV.    The  Bohemian  Character      .       .       .  130 
Professor  H.  A.  Miller. 

V.    Place   of   Bohemia    in    the    Creative 

Arts 153 

Professor  Will  S.  Monroe. 

VI,    The   Bohemians  and  the  Slavic  Re- 
generation         160 

Professor  Leo  Wiener. 

Addenda.     The  Bohemians  as  Immigrants  .   176 
Professor  Emily  G.  Balch. 


HAVE   THE   BOHEMIANS   A   PLACE   IN 
THE  SUN? 

BOHEMIA  (German  Bohmen,  Bohemian 
Cechy  ♦)  has  an  area  of  20,223  square 
miles,  and  is  bounded  on  the  north  by- 
Saxony  and  Prussian  Silesia ;  on  the  east  by  Prus- 
sia and  Moravia;  on  the  south  by  Lower  Austria; 
on  the  west  by  Bavaria.  According  to  the  census 
of  1910,  4,241,918  inhabitants  declared  for  Bo- 
hemian and  2,467,724  for  the  German  language. 
Historians  recognize  two  epochal  events  in  the 
life  of  the  nation.  The  first  begins  with  the  out- 
break of  the  Hussite  wars,  following  the  death  of 
King  Vaclav  IV.  in  1419;  the  second,  with  the 
battle  of  White  Mountain  in  1620.     The  period 

•  The  word  Czech,  which  is  being  freely  used  in  the  Anglo-Amer- 
ican press,  is  a  corrupt  form  of  Cech.  The  German  form  is  Czech, 
Tscheche,  the  French  Tcheque.  But,  inasmuch  as  Cech  is  sounded 
more  nearly  like  Checkh  and  not  Czech,  the  form  Czech  fails  utterly 
of  its  purpose  and  its  use  should  be  discontinued.  The  people  them- 
selves prefer  to  be  called  Bohemians,  not  Czechs,  which  latter  appella- 
tion is  not  generally  known  or  understood.  Some  years  ago  a  noted 
scholar  was  severely  censured  because  he  named  his  magazine,  edited 
in  the  German  language,  but  Bohemiophile  in  tendency,  "  Cechische 
Revue,"  instead  of  "  Bohmische  Revue."  The  truth  of  the  matter  is 
that  the  appellation  Czech  is  an  invention  of  Vienna  journalists,  who, 
by  persistent  use  of  the  term,  wish  to  give  a  warning  to  the  world 
that  Bohemia  is  not  all  Cech,  but  part  German  and  part  Cech. 

17 


18  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

intervening  between  the  first  two  events  is  re- 
ferred to  as  the  Middle  Age.  That  which  pre- 
ceded the  Hussite  wars  is  called  the  Old  Age,  and, 
that  which  followed  the  defeat  at  White  Moun- 
tain, the  New  Age. 

THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE 

The  Margravate  of  Moravia,  a  sister  state  of 
Bohemia,  and  one  of  her  crown-lands,  contains  an 
area  of  8,583  square  miles.  The  population  of 
Moravia  is  1,868,971  Bohemians  and  719,435 
Germans. 

The  third  crown-land  of  Bohemia  is  the  Duchy 
of  Silesia,  with  an  area  of  1,987  square  miles. 
The  population  is  divided  as  follows:  180,348 
Bohemians,  325,523  Germans,  235,224  Poles.* 

Although  statisticians  found  in  Austria,  in 
1910,  only  6,435*983  Bohemians,  it  is  generally 
known  that  the  actual  figure  is  higher  by  several 
hundred  thousands.  Singularly  enough,  the  test 
in  Austria  of  one's  nationality  is  not  the  mother 

*  Silesia  was  much  larger,  but  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia  despoiled 
Maria  Theresa  in  1742  of  a  major  portion  of  it.  Thus  was  created 
Prussian  Silesia  and  Austrian  Silesia.  In  Macaulay's  "  Life  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great,"  we  read  why  the  Prussian  King  made  war  on  his 
neighbor.  In  manifestoes  he  might,  for  form's  sake,  insert  some 
idle  stories  about  his  antiquated  claim  on  Silesia;  but  in  his  con- 
versations and  Memoirs  he  took  a  very  different  tone.  His  own  words 
were:  "Ambition,  interest,  the  desire  of  making  people  talk  about 
me,  carried  the  day;  and  I  decided  for  war."  If  there  is  a  rectifica- 
tion of  Prussian  boundary  after  the  war,  a  portion  of  Prussian 
Silesia,  that  is  still  Bohemian,  should  be  returned  to  Austrian 
Silesia. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  19 

tongue  of  the  citizen,  as  elsewhere,  but  the  lingual 
medium  which  one  employs  in  daily  association 
with  others.  This  medium  the  statisticians  desig- 
nate the  "  Verkehrsprache  " — the  "  Language  of 
Association."  The  first  decennial  census,  under 
this  novel  system,  was  taken  in  1880,  and  the  re- 
sults thereby  obtained  pleased  Vienna  so  well  that 
the  method  has  remained  in  use  ever  since.  When 
the  matter  was  debated  in  parliament  in  1880  the 
Bohemians  and  other  Slavs  indignantly  protested 
against  it  as  unscientific  and  as  a  device  dictated 
by  political  motives.  A  census  so  taken,  they  con- 
tended, was  calculated  to  raise  by  artful  means  the 
numerical  strength  of  the  Germans  and  to  deduce 
from  it  the  superior  importance  to  the  state  of  the 
Germanic  element  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  non- 
Germans.*  It  was  argued  that  the  mother  tongue 
of  the  citizens  should  serve  as  the  test  of  one's 
nationality,  not  the  language  in  which  the  Slavic 
workman  may  be  compelled  to  address  his  German 
employer  or  a  Slavic  subaltern  his  German  military 
superior.  But,  as  usual,  Slavic  opposition  was 
over-ridden.  Even  fair-minded  Austrians  con- 
demned   the    system    as    unscientific.      Innama- 

•  Representation  in  parliament  being  determinable  by  the  result  of 
the  enumeration,  one  can  at  once  see  of  what  vital  concern  it  is  to 
non-Germans  to  obtain  a  census  free  from  political  bias.  As  matters 
are,  the  Germans  constitute  35  per  cent,  of  the  population,  yet  have 
52  p)€r  cent,  representation  in  the  Reichsrath  (parliament),  while  24 
per  cent.  Bohemians  are  represented  in  parliament  only  by  17  per 
cent 


90  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Sternegg,  for  instance,  deplored  the  fact  that  the 
empire  should  have  recourse  to  the  "  Verkehr- 
sprache "  test  for  political  purposes.  On  this 
ground  Austrian  official  figures  should  be  scruti- 
nized with  extreme  caution.  It  has  repeatedly  been 
proven  by  private  census-takers  that  the  official 
census  is  unreliable,  and  that  it  grossly  under- 
estimates the  numerical  strength  of  the  Bohemians. 

From  an  agricultural  state,  that  it  was  until  re- 
cently, Bohemia  is  rapidly  changing  into  an  indus- 
trial state.  Two  of  the  most  valuable  products, 
which  make  for  the  wealth  of  industrial  countries, 
namely,  coal  and  iron,  the  hills  of  Bohemia  contain 
in  abundance.  Among  her  specialties,  which  have 
acquired  world-wide  renown,  are  decorated  and 
engraved  glassware,  beer  (Pilsener),  high-class 
cotton  textiles  and  linen  goods,  grass  seeds,  em- 
broidery, hops,  fezzes  worn  by  the  Mohammedan 
people  of  the  Orient,  toys,  etc. 

From  times  immemorial,  Bohemia  has  been  the 
battle-ground  between  the  Slav  and  the  Teuton.  A 
glance  at  the  map  of  Central  Europe  will  tell  the 
story.  Most  westerly  of  all  the  Slavic  peoples,  the 
Bohemians  are  surrounded  on  the  north,  west,  and 
south  by  Germans.  Only  on  the  south  and  east 
frontiers  are  there  strips  of  territory  that  connect 
them  with  kindred  races.  More  than  once  the  Ger- 
manic sea  has  threatened  to  engulf  them  in  the 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  21 

same  way  that  it  swept  away  the  Slavic  tribes 
that  lived  north  of  them  in  Lusatia  and  of  whose 
existence  nothing  now  remains  but  the  Slavic 
names  of  rivers  and  cities.  The  struggle  for  su- 
premacy in  Bohemia  may  be  said  to  have  begun  the 
year  the  fabled  leader  Cech,  in  the  gray  dawn  of 
history  (about  450  a.d.),  migrated  to  the  country, 
having  dispossessed  the  non-Slavic  tribes  of  Boii, 
from  whom  Bohemia  acquired  her  name.  The  Hus- 
site wars  in  the  fifteenth  century  are  popularly  be- 
lieved to  have  been  waged  to  free  men's  intellects 
from  the  spiritual  trammels  of  Rome;  yet  in  the  last 
analysis  it  will  be  found  that  the  Hussites,  in  mak- 
ing war  on  the  invaders  who  poured  into  the  coun- 
try from  Germany,  rejoiced  in  vanquishing  alike 
the  foes  of  their  race  and  the  oppressors  of  their 
conscience.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  conviction  that 
one  acquires  in  perusing  those  chapters  of  the 
history  of  the  country  that  treat  of  the  Hussite 
wars. 

Jointly  with  Moravia,  Bohemia  formed  the 
nucleus  of  the  Bohemian  State;  this  state  had 
never  ceased  to  be  Bohemian-Slavic  in  character, 
though  at  times  ruled  by  alien  kings.  The  whole 
of  Silesia  and  both  Lusatias  (Upper  and  Lower) 
also  constituted  part  and  parcel  of  this  state,  yet 
the  latter  were  never  so  closely  affiliated  with 
Bohemia  as  Moravia  had  been,  because  the  in- 


ft»  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

habitants  of  the  Lusatias  were  not  by  origin  or 
preponderatingly  Bohemian,  but  of  Polish  and 
Serb  (Wend)  ancestry,  having  been  largely  Ger- 
manized at  the  time  they  passed  under  the  rule  of 
the  Bohemian  Kings  in  the  fourteenth  century. 

Generally  speaking,  the  Bohemians  inhabited 
the  flat  lands  of  the  interior,  while  the  Germans 
overflowed  the  border  line  on  the  south,  west,  and 
north,  forming  an  almost  uninterrupted  chain  of 
settlements.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  there 
is  no  compact,  unmixed  German  territory  in  Bo- 
hemia, which  is  exclusively  German  and  into 
which  the  Bohemian  workman,  going  in  search  of 
employment  to  the  mines,  mills,  and  shops  in  the 
northwest,  has  not  penetrated,  and  in  which  he  has 
not  domiciled  himself.  The  invasion  of  Bohemian 
workmen  has  virtually  rendered  bilingual  every 
such  Germanized  district  where  industrialism 
flourishes. 

So  intermixed  are  the  two  races  on  the  border 
line  that  a  person  cannot  say  confidently  that  his 
ancestry  is  either  pure  German  or  pure  Bohemian. 
Observe,  for  example,  the  names  of  Bohemian  lead- 
ers: Rieger,  Brauner,  Gregr,  Zeithammer.  They 
have  an  unmistakable  Teutonic  ring.  Again,  note 
the  names  of  Schmeykal,  Tascheck,  Chlumecky, 
and  Giskra,  who  lead  the  German  cohorts.  These 
clearly  betray  Slavic  origin.    It  has  been  remarked 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  2S 

sarcastically  that  the  Bohemians  were  really  Ger- 
man-speaking Slavs,  Certain  it  is  that  their  asso- 
ciation of  more  than  a  thousand  years'  duration 
with  Teutonic  neighbors  resulted  in  their  accept- 
ing many  of  the  latter's  customs  and  western  cul- 
ture. Then,  too,  foreigners  have  noticed  in 
Bohemians  a  degree  of  aggressiveness  that  they 
claim  is  singularly  lacking  in  the  make-up  of  the 
other  Slavs.  This  trait,  aggressiveness,  may  have 
been  inherited  as  a  result  of  an  almost  ceaseless 
struggle  for  national  existence.  It  is  not  improb- 
able, however,  that  the  racial  mixture  above  men- 
tioned may  have  been  one  of  the  contributing 
causes. 

Fear  of  the  Teutonic  peril  has  always  har- 
ried the  soul  of  the  nation.  Every  historian,  every 
poet,  every  patriot  has  admonished  the  people 
to  be  on  their  guard.  One  of  the  oldest  chorals 
extant  contains  the  pathetic  invocation  to  the 
patron  saint  of  the  country.  "  St.  Vaclav,  Duke  of 
the  Bohemian  Land,  do  not  let  us  perish  nor  our 
descendants." 

In  course  of  time  many  Germans  and  denational- 
ized Bohemians  were  Bohemianized,  so  that  it  is 
hazardous  to  guess  whether  in  Bohemia  and 
Moravia  more  Germans  adopted  the  Bohemian 
language  than  Bohemians  the  German.  The  final 
sum  of  this  process  of  assimilation  seems  to  be 


S4  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

that  the  Bohemians  constitute  more  than  two-thirds 
and  the  Germans  less  than  one-third  of  the  entire 
population  of  the  kingdom. 

As  regards  the  ownership  of  land,  Bohemians 
hold  about  three-fifths  of  the  soil,  in  Moravia  three- 
fourths.  If  it  is  true  that  the  people  with  a  future 
is  the  one  that  owns  the  land,  then  the  future  of 
Bohemians  is  clearly  assured.  Looking  backward, 
it  was  very  fortunate  for  the  nation  that  in  the 
days  of  its  deepest  abasement  the  peasant  was  not 
allowed  to  dispose  of  his  holdings  at  will,  other- 
wise the  inrush  of  the  Teutons  would  have  still 
more  reduced  the  national  area. 

If  we  accept  literacy  as  one  of  the  tests  of  the 
culture  of  a  people,  it  will  be  found  that  the  Bo- 
hemians rank  highest  among  the  Slavic  races,  sur- 
passing even  Austrian-Germans  and  Hungarian 
Magyars.  According  to  the  official  reports  of  the 
Commissioner  of  Immigration  in  Washington,  the 
number  of  illiterates  among  Bohemians  is  less 
than  3  per  cent.,  Slovaks  25  per  cent.,  Serbo- 
Croatians,  38  per  cent.,  Poles  40  per  cent..  Little 
Russians  (Ruthenes),  63  per  cent.  Among  the 
non-Slavic  immigrants  from  Austria-Hungary  to 
America  the  percentages  of  illiteracy  are  as  fol- 
lows: Germans  4  per  cent.,  Magyars  12  per  cent., 
Italians  23  per  cent.,  Jews  2.}^  per  cent.,  Rumuns 
29  per  cent. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  25 

It  may  not  be  uninteresting  to  note,  as  indicative 
of  the  position  held  by  Bohemians  among  the  Slavs, 
the  number  of  newspapers  circulated  in  Slavdom.* 
The  Lusatian  Serbs,  a  remnant  of  a  once  populous 
Slavic  branch  in  Germany,  support  ii  publica- 
tions; Slovaks,  53  (4  of  which  are  dailies); 
Slovenes,  no  (5  dailies);  Bulgars,  300  (19 
dailies) ;  Serbo-Croatians,  350  (37  dailies)  ;  Poles, 
600  (78  dailies)  ;  Bohemians,  1,400  (34  dailies), 
and  Russians,  1,800  (315  dailies).  From  this 
statistical  fragment  it  will  be  seen  that  a  little 
country  like  Bohemia  takes  very  favorable  rank 
when  compared  with  the  great  Russian  Empire. 

At  home  the  Bohemian  is  looked  upon  as  a  pro- 
gressive agriculturist,  and  American  tourists  who 
have  traveled  in  the  country  have  been  favorably 
impressed  with  the  orderliness  of  the  farms  and 
the  high  state  of  cultivation  of  the  land.  In  the 
great  agricultural  belt  formed  by  the  States  of 
Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Iowa,  Nebraska,  Kansas, 
and  the  Dakotas  there  are  large  settlements  of 
Bohemians  (about  one-half  of  the  Bohemian  popu- 
lation in  the  United  States  devoting  itself  to  farm- 
ing) ,  and  their  farms  are  known  to  bear  favorable 
comparison  with  the  homesteads  owned  by  land- 
tillers  of  Scandinavian  and  Teuton  ancestry. 

The  fact  that  a  particular  faith  was  denied  him 

•  "  The  Slavdom :  Picture  of  Its  Past  and  Present,"  Prague,  xgta. 


26  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

and  he  was  required  to  accept  a  different  creed, 
has  made  the  Bohemian  one  of  the  most  liberal- 
minded  of  men, — in  many  instances  a  sceptic  and 
a  scoffer.  Possibly  there  is  no  other  foreign  na- 
tionality in  the  United  States  that  can  boast  trans- 
lations in  the  vernacular  of  Thomas  Paine  and  of 
other  advanced  thinkers  as  early  as  the  Bo- 
hemians. 

Economically  the  Germans  are  stronger  than  any 
other  one  race  in  the  empire.  Much  of  their  un- 
questioned primacy  in  the  realm  of  commerce  and 
industry  is  due  to  the  fact  that  everywhere  they 
enjoy  special  favors  from  the  government.  Then, 
too,  the  Slav,  who  is  by  preference  a  land-tiller 
(as  is  also  the  Magyar),  is  still  a  novice  in  busi- 
ness. The  vast  economic  interests  of  the  Jews  are 
found  wholly  on  the  side  of  the  Germans.  Ernest 
Denis  believes  that  German  primacy  in  commerce 
may  yet  continue  for  some  time  to  come,  because 
the  districts  inhabited  by  them  in  Bohemia  offer 
greater  inducements  to  the  investor  and  the  capi- 
talist, owing  to  the  wealth  of  mineral  riches  found 
along  the  northwest  frontier.  It  is,  however,  Denis' 
opinion  that  the  existing  inequality  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  industrial  wealth  will  diminish  as  years 
go  by ;  democracy,  marching  as  it  does  everywhere 
at  the  expense  of  the  upper  classes,  will  level  it 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  27 

down  and  give  the  Bohemian  majority  its  share  in 
commerce  and  industry. 

THE  DOWNFALL 

The  Bohemians  preserved  their  independence 
till  1620.  That  year  they  rebelled  against  the  king 
for  political  and  religious  reasons  and  were  de- 
feated at  the  battle  of  White  Hill  (Bila  Hora)  near 
Prague.  From  the  effects  of  this  disastrous  event 
the  nation  has  never  recovered,  for  even  now,  after 
the  lapse  of  295  years,  the  scars  received  at  Bila 
Hora  are  not  wholly  healed. 

Ferdinand  II.  punished  the  rebels  with  tradi- 
tional Austrian  fury.  On  June  21,  1621,  he 
caused  the  execution  at  Prague  of  twenty-seven 
leaders  of  the  revolution — all  men  belonging  to  the 
most  noted  families  in  the  country.  A  number  of 
them  were  condemned  to  humiliating  physical  pun- 
ishment and  the  estates  of  all  were  confiscated. 
The  first  to  lay  his  head  on  the  block  of  the  exe- 
cutioner was  Count  Joachim  Andrew  Slik 
(Schlick).  During  the  interregnum  §lik  had  been 
a  Director;  besides,  he  had  served  as  Chief  Justice 
and  Governor  of  Upper  Lusatia.  The  next  victim 
was  Vaclav  Budovec  of  Budova,  "  a  man  of  splen- 
did talents  and  illustrious  learning,  distinguished 
as  a  writer,  widely  known  as  a  traveler,  and  an 
ornament  to  his  country."     Pelcl  said  of  Budova 


fta  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

that  he  belonged  "  to  that  old  cast  of  serious, 
thoughtful,  inflexible  Bohemians,  by  which  the  na- 
tion was  characterized  in  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries."  The  third  to  suffer  was  Chris- 
topher Harant  of  Polzic,  "  a  learned  man,  dis- 
tinguished writer,  and  noted  traveler,"  The  next 
on  the  death  list  was  Caspar  Kaplif  of  Sulevic,  a 
venerable  man  of  eighty-six.  The  fifth  was 
Prokop  Dvofecky  of  Olbramovic,  a  scion  of  an  old 
family.  The  sixth  was  Baron  Frederick  Bily, 
"  an  upright  and  learned  man,  one  of  the  Directors 
at  the  time  of  the  interregnum."  The  seventh, 
Henry  Otto  of  Los,  who,  under  Frederick,  was 
connected  with  the  exchequer.  Then  followed  suc- 
cessively Dionys  Cernin,  William  Konechlumsky, 
aged  seventy  years,  Bohuslav  of  Michalovic,  "  a 
man  of  splendid  talents  who  deserved  well  of  his 
country,"  Valentine  Kochan  of  Prachov,  a  learned 
master  of  arts;  Tobias  Stefek  of  Kolodej,  a  citizen 
of  Prague  and  a  Director  of  the  Revolution ;  John 
Jesensky  of  Jesen  (Jessenius),  a  scholar,  scientist, 
and  orator,  "  whose  writings  shed  lustre  on  the 
university;"  Christopher  Kober,  a  noted  citizen  of 
Prague;  Burgomasters  John  Sultys  of  Kutna  Hora 
and  Maximilian  Hosfalek  of  2atec  (Saaz),  (the 
two  latter  having  been  Directors  during  the  in- 
terregnum), John  Kutnaur,  a  Councilor  of  Prague, 
Kutnaur's  father-in-law  Simon  Susicky,  Nathaniel 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  29 

Vodnansky  of  Uracov,  Vaclav  Jizbicky.  The  last 
to  undergo  death  were  Henry  Kozel,  Andrew 
Kocour  of  Otin,  George  Recicky,  Michael  Witt- 
man,  Simon  Vokac  of  Chys  and  Spicberk,  Leander 
Riippel,  and  George  Hauenschild.  On  the  tower 
of  the  ancient  Charles  Bridge,  which  connects  the 
Old  Town  with  the  Small  Town  in  Prague,  twelve 
heads  of  the  rebels  were  set  up  in  small  wire  cages, 
six  on  each  side  of  the  tower,  to  awe  the  populace. 
There  these  gruesome  evidences  of  Hapsburg 
hatred  remained  for  years.  On  the  same  tower 
were  exposed  to  public  view  the  hands  of  Slik  and 
Michalovic  and  the  tongue  of  Jesensky.  Riippel's 
head  and  hand  were  nailed  on  the  wall  of  the 
Town  House. 

So  ended  the  "  Bloody  Day  at  Prague  " — a  day 
that  Bohemians  may  have  forgiven,  but  which 
none  have  forgotten.  What  now  followed  is  prob- 
ably without  parallel  in  the  history  of  European 
nations.  Edmund  de  Schweinitz,  in  commenting 
on  the  consequences  of  the  Bohemian  Revolution, 
says  that  "  in  the  history  of  Christendom  there 
were  few  events  more  mournful.  From  the  pin- 
nacle of  prosperity  Bohemia  and  Moravia  were 
plunged  into  the  depths  of  adversity." 

The  month  the  executions  took  place,  the  em- 
peror, or  rather  the  so-called  Liechtenstein's  Com- 
mission on  Confiscations  which  had  been  appointed 


so  BOHEAflANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

by  the  emperor,  pronounced  forfeiture  on  the 
estates  of  658  landowners  of  the  nobility  out  of 
a  total  of  728,  whose  names  were  on  the  list  of 
accused.  Thomas  Bilek,  a  writer  of  unimpeach- 
able authority,  has  published  a  voluminous  book 
on  these  confiscations  from  which  it  would  appear 
that  the  Liechtenstein  Commission  had  confiscated 
fully  two-thirds  of  all  the  lands  in  Bohemia.  Some 
of  the  choicest  estates  taken  away  from  the  rebels 
the  emperor  retained  for  the  Hapsburg  family. 
A  goodly  portion  of  the  forfeited  lands  was  given 
to  the  church,  of  which  the  emperor  was  a  devout 
member.  "  Take,  fathers,  take,"  he  used  to  say  to 
the  ecclesiastics  when  endowing  this  or  that 
foundation  with  gifts  of  confiscated  estates.  "  It 
is  not  always  that  you  will  have  a  Ferdinand." 
Still  other  lands  reverted  to  the  state.  What  was 
left  the  emperor  magnanimously  distributed  among 
those  of  his  favorites  whose  military  prowess  in 
the  rebellion  entitled  them  to  some  special  recog- 
nition or  compensation.  Albrecht,  Count  of  Wal- 
lenstein  or  Waldstein,  at  one  time  a  Greneralissimo 
of  Ferdinand's  army  against  Gustavus  Adolphus, 
was  able  to  "  purchase  "  sixty  confiscated  estates 
of  an  enormous  value. 

Struve  has  remarked  that  of  all  the  nobles  in 
)the  world  those  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  had 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  .81 

probably  the  least  reason  to  boast  of  their  ancestry. 
This  is  especially  true  of  the  nobility  whose  ad- 
vent into  Bohemia  antedates  the  first  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  From  the  events  here  re- 
lated began  the  rise  in  Bohemia  of  such  families 
as  Buquoy,  Clary  de  Riva,  Aldringen,  Trautmans- 
dorff,  Metternich,  Marrada.s,  Verduga,  Colloredo, 
Piccolomini,  Wallis,  Gallas,  Millesimo,  Liechten- 
stein, Goltz,  Villani,  Defours,  Huerta,  Vasques — 
names  indicating  Spanish,  Italian,  German,  and 
Walloon  birth.  These  aliens,  enriched  by  property 
taken  away  from  Bohemian  nobility,  surrounded 
themselves  with  foreign  officials,  who  treated  the 
natives  with  the  scorn  and  insolence  of  victors. 
Their  chateaux  formed  in  many  cases  the  nucleus 
of  German  settlements  which  later  threatened  to 
overwhelm  the  nation.  Some  of  these  "  islands," 
or  settlements,  which  were  situated  farther  inland, 
were  in  time  absorbed  by  the  native  population. 
But  not  so  with  the  colonies  on  the  border.  These 
latter  not  only  preserved  the  lingual  and  national 
characteristics  of  the  owners,  but  they  even  con- 
trived to  Germanize  the  home  element  that  came 
into  contact  with  them.  It  was  during  this  calami- 
tous period  that  the  Germans  made  the  greatest  in- 
roads upon  Bohemian  national  territory. 

Prior  to  the  Thirty  Years'  War  Bohemia  was 


S2  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

overwhelmingly  Protestant,*  but  Ferdinand  deter- 
mined that  in  his  empire  there  should  be  "  unity 
of  faith  and  tongue."  A  unity  of  faith  he  and 
his  successors  have  achieved,  but  it  has  been  de- 
nied to  the  Hapsburgs — ^much  as  they  have  tried  to 
achieve  it — the  unity  of  language. 

In  1620  Jesuit  fathers  were  invited  to  come  to 
Bohemia  and  to  take  charge  of  the  once  renowned 
University  of  Prague  and  of  the  provincial  schools. 
"  The  Jesuits  buried  the  spirit  of  the  Bohemian 
nation  for  centuries."  This  is  the  severe  judg- 
ment of  no  less  a  person  than  V.  V.  Tomek,  the 
noted  historian.  Accompanied  by  Liechtenstein's 
dragoons  these  ecclesiastics  went  from  town  to 
town,  searched  libraries,  carried  off  books  written 
in  Bohemian  and  burned  them  whether  they  were 
"  tainted  "  or  not.  Sometimes  the  books  were  pri- 
vately thrown  in  the  flames  in  the  houses  where  they 
had  been  seized ;  at  other  times  they  were  brought 
to  the  market-place  or  to  the  public  gallows  and 
there  publicly  burned.  The  Jesuits  were  indefati- 
gable in  their  search  for  heretical  literature,  ran- 
sacking houses  from  cellar  to  garret,  opening  every 
closet  and  chest,  prying  into  the  very  dog  kennels 
and    pig-sties.     People   hid   their   most   precious 

•  Now  of  every  1,000  inhabitants  in  Bohemia  956.61  profess  the 
Catholic  faith.  Due  to  various  reasons — spiritual,  political,  and  histor- 
ical— more  than  one-half  of  the  American  Bohemians  have  seceded 
from  the  Catholic  Church.  Some  have  joined  various  Protestant 
sects,  but  the  majority  of  the  seeessionists  are  Free-thinkert. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  33 

books  from  the  ferreting  eyes  of  the  inquisition- 
ers  in  baking  ovens,  cellars,  and  caves.  There  are 
cases  on  irecord  of  rare  Bohemian  volumes  having 
been  saved  from  destruction  by  being  hidden  under 
manure  piles. 

One  zealot,  Konias  by  name,  boasted  that  he 
had  burned  or  otherwise  mutilated  60,000  Bo- 
hemian volumes.  According  to  him  "  all 
Bohemian  books  printed  between  the  years  1414 
and  1620,  treating  of  religious  subjects,  were  gen- 
erally dangerous  and  suspicious."  From  their  seat 
in  the  Clementinum  (Prague  University)  they  pre- 
sided over  the  intellectual  life  of  the  country; 
that  is  to  say,  they  wholly  suppressed  it.  In  order 
to  more  systematically  supervise  the  work,  a  censor 
was  appointed  by  them  for  each  of  the  three 
lands, — Bohemia,  Moravia,  and  Silesia, — and  it 
was  the  duty  of  this  censor  to  see  to  it  that  no 
books  were  published  or  reprinted  that  did  not 
meet  the  approval  of  the  general  of  the  order. 
Easy  was  the  labor  of  the  censor,  for  in  Moravia, 
for  instance,  only  one  printer  was  fortunate  enough 
to  secure  a  license.  In  Bohemia  they  set  up  the  so- 
called  University  Printing  Office.  Besides  this 
only  five  or  six  other  establishments  were  licensed 
to  print  books.  In  a  few  decades  these  zealots 
destroyed  Bohemian  literature  altogether.  The 
almanacs,  tracts,  hymnals,  and  prayer  books  that 


84  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

issued  from  their  printing  presses  could  not  be 
dignified  by  the  term  literature.  Count  Liitzow, 
in  his  "  History  of  Bohemian  Literature,"  frankly 
admits  that,  with  few  exceptions,  all  the  men  who, 
during  the  last  years  of  Bohemian  independence, 
were  most  prominent  in  literature  and  politics 
belonged  to  the  Bohemian  Church.  Living  in 
exile  in  foreign  countries,  there  was  no  one  left 
at  home  to  resume  their  tasks. 

Ferdinand  began  his  anti-reformation  crusade 
in  earnest  in  162 1.  In  December  of  that  year  he 
issued  a  patent  by  virtue  of  which  about  one  thou- 
sand teachers  and  ministers  of  the  gospel  of  the  Bo- 
hemian Church  were  forced  to  leave  the  country. 
The  Lutherans  did  not  come  under  this  ban,  inas- 
much as  the  emperor  was  anxious  to  please  his 
ally,  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  who  pleaded  clem- 
ency for  his  co-religionists.  In  1624  seven  patents 
were  promulgated.  Some  of  these  were  directed 
against  the  laity,  which,  till  then,  had  escaped  the 
wrath  of  the  conqueror.  It  ordered  the  expulsion 
from  trade  guilds  of  all  those  who  could  not  agree 
with  the  emperor  in  matters  of  faith.  Discrimina- 
tory measures  against  nonconformist  merchants 
and  traders  went  into  effect,  which  quickly  resulted 
in  their  ruin.  Another  patent,  bearing  date  July 
31,  1627,  was  more  severe  than  those  preceding  it. 
By  it  dissenters  of  both  sexes  and  irrespective  of 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  35 

rank  were  ordered  to  renounce  their  faith  within 
six  months,  or  failing  to  do  so,  leave  the  country. 
The  operation  of  this  patent  extended  to  Moravia, 
but  not  to  Silesia  and  Lusatia.  The  two  latter- 
named  provinces  had  been  spared  because  of  a 
promise  given  by  the  emperor  to  the  Elector  of 
Saxony. 

So  severely  did  the  country  suffer  by  forced  ex- 
patriation, as  a  result  of  these  edicts,  that  Ferdi- 
nand saw  himself  compelled  to  issue  other  patents 
to  check  it.  In  the  hope  of  conciliating  he  remitted 
fines  in  certain  cases,  discontinued  suits  for  trea- 
son, and  made  restitution  of  confiscated  property. 
In  some  cases  he  extended  the  time  within  which 
heretics  could  become  reconciled  with  the  church, 
but  the  clemency  was  extended  too  late,  for  while 
some  individuals  yielded  to  the  formidable  pres- 
sure, the  great  mass  of  nonconformists,  com- 
prising the  very  flower  of  the  nation,  were  deter- 
mined rather  to  lose  their  property  and  leave  the 
fatherland  than  to  renounce  that  which  they  held 
most  sacred. 

Count  Slavata,  who  himself  took  no  Inconsider- 
able part  in  this  terrible  drama  of  anti -re formation, 
and  who,  owing  to  his  religious  convictions,  cannot 
be  accused  of  partiality,  is  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  about  36,000  families,  including  185 
houses  of  nobility   (some  of  these  houses  num- 


36  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

bered  as  many  as  50  persons  each),  statesmen, 
distinguished  authors,  professors,  preachers, — 
spurning  to  accept  the  emperor's  terms,  went  into 
exile. 

In  1627  Ferdinand  promulgated  what  he  desig- 
nated the  "  Amended  Statute."  The  "  amend- 
ment "  really  consisted  in  the  abolishment  of  those 
ancient  rights  and  liberties  of  the  land  which  were 
incompatible  with  autocratic  powers. 

Under  the  "  Amended  Statute  "  the  kingdom, 
heretofore  free  to  elect  its  sovereign,  was  declared 
to  be  an  hereditary  possession,  both  in  the  male  and 
female  line,  of  the  Hapsburg  family.  The  three 
estates — lords,  knights,  and  the  cities — which  till 
then  constituted  the  legislative  branch  of  the  gov- 
ernment, were  augmented  by  a  fourth  unit,  the 
clergy.  The  fourth  estate  was  destined  to  exercise, 
as  subsequent  events  have  shown,  the  greatest  in- 
fluence on  the  affairs  of  the  government.  The  Diet 
at  Prague  was  divested  practically  of  all  its  power 
and  initiative;  from  now  on  its  sole  function  was 
to  levy  and  collect  taxes.  And  because  the  king 
had  invited  to  the  country  so  many  alien  nobles 
(or  commoners  later  ennobled)  who  were  ignorant 
of  the  language  of  the  land,  the  amended  statute 
provided  that  henceforth  the  German  language 
should  enjoy  equal  rights  with  the  Bohemian.  A 
,di34StrQU5  blow  to  the  unity  of  the  Bohemian 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  37 

Crown  was  further  dealt  by  the  annulment  of  the 
right  of  the  estates  in  Bohemia,  Moravia,  and 
Silesia  to  meet  at  a  General  Assembly  for  the 
purpose  of  deliberating  on  matters  common  to 
the  crown.  By  this  clever  stroke  the  emperor  tore 
asunder  the  ancient  ties  of  the  kingdom.  He 
rightly  reasoned  that  by  isolating  each  of  the  in- 
tegral parts  of  the  kingdom  he  could  easier  hope 
to  hold  in  leash  the  whole  of  it. 

In  time  the  administration  of  the  Bohemian 
Crown  was  entrusted  to  an  executive  who  received 
the  title  of  Chancellor,  and  when  the  kings  no 
longer  resided  in  Prague,  having  taken  up  a 
permanent  abode  in  Vienna,  the  Chancellory  was 
removed  thither,  ostensibly  on  the  ground  that 
the  Chancellor  was  required  to  be  near  the  person 
of  the  sovereign.  In  reality,  however,  the  trans- 
fer was  a  part  of  a  preconceived  plan  to  make 
Vienna  the  centre  of  the  empire,  from  which  the 
Hapsburg  "  provinces  "  were  to  be  ruled.  Under 
one  pretext  or  another  the  Chancellory  was  being 
gradually  shorn  of  its  powers,  until  Maria  Theresa 
(1740- 1 780)  abolished  it  altogether.  Henceforth 
even  purely  local  matters  were  administered  from 
Vienna  direct,  and  the  officials  began  to  style 
the  once  proud  kingdom  a  "  province  of  Aus- 
tria." 

During  the  Thirty  Years'  War  thousands  of  vil- 


88  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

lages  were  destroyed  by  fire  and  many  of  them 
have  never  been  rebuilt.  The  population,  which 
before  the  war  was  estimated  at  3,000,000,  was 
reduced  by  fire,  sword,  and  pestilence  to  about 
800,000.  Fields  lay  fallow  for  years  for  lack  of 
workers  to  cultivate  them.  Of  the  151,000  farms 
before  the  war  hardly  50,000  remained.  Native 
nobility  was  reduced  to  beggary  by  the  confisca- 
tion of  their  estates,  and  the  peasantry  that  sur- 
vived was  reduced  by  alien  lords  to  a  degrading 
condition  of  serfdom.  Between  1621  and  1630  400 
Prague  citizens  went  into  exile.  The  Nove  Mesto 
(one  of  the  Prague  quarters)  alone  had  at  one 
time  500  vacant  houses.  The  town  of  2atec,  which 
in  1 61 8  had  460  citizens,  counted  ten  years  later 
205  of  them.  In  Kutna  Hora,  of  a  total  of 
600  houses,  200  remained  without  owners  or 
tenants.  The  population  of  the  city  of  Olomouc  in 
Moravia,  by  1640,  was  reduced  from  30,000  to 
1,670.  Wherever  the  armies  marched  ncything 
was  seen  but  waste  and  ruins.  According  to  notes 
taken  by  Swedish  soldiers,  138  cities  and  2,171 
villages  were  totally  ravaged  by  fire.  The  textile 
industry,  which  had  been  the  source  of  the  wealth 
of  the  country,  was  almost  wholly  destroyed  by 
the  war. 

The  defeat  at  White  Mountain  could  not  have 
been  productive  of  such  disastrous  consequences 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  39 

had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  the  nobles  were 
the  standard-bearers  of  Bohemian  nationalism  and 
the  sole  representatives  of  the  nation's  culture  and 
traditions.  The  peasantry  in  those  days  and  for 
a  long  time  afterward  was  yet  helplessly  dependent 
on  the  aristocracy. 

Bohemian  Huguenots  were  scattered  over  every 
land  in  Central  Europe,  most  of  them  seeking 
refuge  in  nearby  Saxony,  Silesia,  Hungary,  and 
Poland.  Many  emigrated  to  more  distant  lands, 
such  as  Sweden,  serving  in  the  army  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  Russia,  Holland,  England.  A  few  of 
the  more  adventurous  spirits  wandered  off  with 
the  English  and  the  Dutch  to  America.  One  of 
them,  Augustine  Herman,  a  noted  figure  among 
the  early  Dutch  in  New  Amsterdam,  made  an 
attempt  to  establish  a  colony  of  compatriots  on  a 
grant  of  land  that  he  had  received  from  Lord 
Baltimore  and  which  he  named  in  honor  of  his 
native  land,  Bohemia  Manor,  a  place  famous  in 
early  Maryland  history.  Numerous  exiles  settled 
in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  Vir- 
ginia. In  the  beginning  the  exiles  hoped  to  be 
permitted  to  return  home,  but  the  terms  of  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia  (1648)  made  such  a  return 
definitely  impossible.  They  repeatedly  called  for 
help.  Oliver  Cromwell,  it  is  said,  had  a  project 
under  consideration  whereby  Bohemian  exiles  were 


40  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

to  be  settled  in  Ireland.  John  Amos  Comenius,  the 
bishop  of  the  Bohemian  Church,  a  distinguished 
educator,  himself  an  exile  living  in  Holland,  pre- 
sented the  history  of  his  church  to  King  Charles 
II.  of  England  in  1660,  with  a  stirring  account  of 
its  suffering. 

Suspecting  that  the  dissenters  were  yet  unsup- 
pressed,  the  government  caused  other  patents  to  be 
issued,  one  of  which,  published  in  1650,  imposed 
severe  penalties  such  as  the  billeting  of  troops, 
banishment  from  the  country,  confiscation  of  prop- 
erty and,  in  extreme  cases,  death.  A  patent  dated 
April  9th  of  that  year  required  that  within  six 
weeks  all  parishes  should  instal  conformist  clergy 
or  close.  Under  Josef  I.  (i 705-171 1),  and  again 
under  Charles  VI.  (1711-1740),  the  work  of  anti- 
reformation  was  renewed  with  increased  severity. 
Loyal  subjects  were  enjoined  under  pain  of  death 
from  harboring  or  aiding  heretic  teachers  or  min- 
isters, the  reading  and  smuggling  into  the  country 
or  otherwise  circulating  Bohemian  books  on  the 
prohibited  list.  Other  patents  followed  in  1721, 
1722,  1723,  1724,  1725,  1726,  with  the  result  that 
non-Catholics  who  still  secretly  clung  to  the  for- 
bidden faith  emigrated  to  Saxony  and  Prussia, 
where  they  sought  the  protection  of  the  rulers  of 
those  countries.    The  suffering  of  the  unfortunates 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  41 

was  somewhat,  though  not  wholly,  relieved  when 
the  German  princes,  assembled  in  the  Diet  at 
Regensburg  in  1735,  sent  a  strong  appeal  to  the 
Austrian  Emperor  to  treat  his  subjects  with  more 
toleration.  When  the  Edict  of  Toleration  was 
issued  in  1781,  permitting  free  worship,  there  still 
remained  in  Bohemia  about  100,000  Protestants.* 
Of  the  refugees  who  fled  to  Germany  in  the  first 
quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  many  found  their 
way  with  the  Herrnhuters,  or  Moravians,  as  they 
are  called  in  the  United  States,  to  Georgia,  and 
others  to  Pennsylvania,  where  they  established,  in 
1741,  the  flourishing  town  of  Bethlehem,  now  the 
recognized  centre  of  the  Moravian  Church  in  the 
United  States.f 

*  However,  the  Patent  of  Tolerance  extended  only  to  Protestants  of 
the  Helvetian  and  Augsburg  Confessions,  not  to  the  Bohemian  Church, 
■which   latter  had   been   denied    recognition. 

t  On  February  9,  1748,  a  bill  was  introduced  in  the  English  Parlia- 
ment "  to  relieve  the  United  Brethren  (so-called  in  Comenius'  time), 
or  Moravians,  from  military  duties  and  taking  oaths."  Among  the 
speakers  was  General  Oglethorpe,  who  spoke  in  support  of  the  bill. 
"  In  the  year  1683  a  most  pathetic  account  of  these  brethren  was 
published  by  order  of  Archbishop  Sancroft  and  Bishop  Compton,"  said 
Oglethorpe.  "  They  also  addressed  the  Church  of  England  in  the 
year  1715,  being  reduced  to  a  very  low  ebb  in  Poland,  and  his  late 
Majesty,  George  I.,  by  the  recommendation  of  the  late  Archbishop 
Wake,  gave  orders  in  council  for  the  relief  of  these  Reformed  Episco- 
pal Churches,  and  letters  patent  for  their  support  were  issued  soon 
after.  But  since  1724  circumstances  have  altered  for  the  better,  and 
they  have  wonderfully  revived,  increased  and  spread  in  several  coun- 
tries. They  have  even  made  some  settlements  in  America.  In  the 
province  of  Pennsylvania  they  have  about  800  people  to  whom  the 
proprietor  and  Governor  gave  very  good  character." 


42  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

GERMANIZATION  AND  THE  AWAKENING 

Germanization,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  pur- 
sued in  Bohemia  by  every  Hapsburg,  though  the 
rulers  of  that  house  have  not  planned  it  as  sys- 
tematically as  Maria  Theresa  or  her  son,  Josef  II. 
Centralism,  to  be  successful  and  powerful,  re- 
quired the  levelling  of  the  differences  of  speech 
and  of  race.  Every  Hapsburg  ruler  had  been  edu- 
cated to  the  belief  that  he  was  rendering  a  supreme 
service  to  his  subjects  by  forcing  them  "  to  unlearn 
the  barbaric  language  of  their  sires,  which  iso- 
lated them  from  the  rest  of  the  world."  "  He  who 
knows  only  Bohemian  and  Latin,"  declared  Coun- 
cilor Gebler,  in  1765,  "  is  bound  to  make  a  poor 
scholar,  and  it  were  better  for  him  to  stick  to 
the  plow  and  to  the  trade;  there  are  too  many 
Latin  scholars  as  it  is."  More  and  more  the 
conviction  gained  ground  that  a  language  like 
the  Bohemian,  spoken  but  by  a  few  millions  of 
people,  was  valueless,  and  that  it  would  be  a  folly 
for  the  government  to  aid  in  its  restoration. 

Austrian  statesmen  were  determined  to  impose 
German  at  one  time  even  on  the  unsuspecting 
Galicians,  though  in  Galicia  there  were  no  Ger- 
mans at  all,  only  Poles  and  Russians.  Discoursing 
upon  the  worth  or  the  lack  of  value  of  languages 
ef  small  nations,  Denis  says :  "  These  arguments 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  43 

may  be  true,  but  unfortunately  they  could  be  ap- 
plied to  every  language  in  the  world." 

In  1774  a  detailed  plan  for  the  Germanization 
of  schools  in  the  empire  was  submitted  to  Maria 
Theresa.  This  plan  provided  for  German  schools 
and  none  others.  By  "  mother "  language  was 
meant  the  German.  Bohemian  was  permitted  in 
the  primary  or  lowest  grades  of  the  school.  No 
pupil  could  enter  a  gymnasium  (secondary  school) 
who  had  not  had  a  previous  training  in  German. 
Fortunately  for  the  non-Germans  of  that  period, 
progress  was  less  rapid  than  had  been  generally 
expected.  Schoolmasters  were  scarce  and  pupils, 
not  understanding  the  language  of  the  teachers, 
advanced  but  slowly.  As  a  result  of  all  this,  the 
queen,  though  unwilling,  was  compelled  to  make 
concessions  here  and  there  and  to  proceed  less  ag- 
gressively. 

A  noted  writer  has  truthfully  said  that  in  the 
eighteenth  century  Bohemians  were  outcasts  in 
their  own  country.  A  lad  who  wanted  to  learn  a 
trade  had  to  attend  a  German  school  for  appren- 
tices, and  only  pupils  knowing  German  were  en- 
titled to  receive  stipends.  In  the  secondary  schools 
in  Bohemia  the  vernacular  was  treated  as  a  "  for- 
eign "  language.  A  professor  was  required  to 
qualify  in  Latin  and  Greek,  yet  no  one  questioned 
whether  or  not  he  knew  the  tongue  of  the  na- 


44  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

tives.  Pupils  were  educated  in  German  to  be  able 
to  perform  the  work  of  janissaries  on  the  people 
of  their  own  race.  Slowly  but  steadily  Bohemian 
was  likewise  forced  out  of  the  courts.  Laws  were 
promulgated  in  the  German  language.  The  Bo- 
hemian began  to  lose  ground  in  the  highest  courts 
of  justice;  gradually  it  was  forced  out  from  the 
inferior  courts.  After  1749  law  documents  in  Bo- 
hemian became  rarer.  When,  in  1788,  Count 
Cavriani  moved  that  only  certain  notices  be  pub- 
lished in  that  language,  the  motion  was  passed 
without  opposition.  From  that  time  on  German 
took  its  place  as  the  official  language  in  the  king- 
dom. 

Can  we  wonder  then  that,  pressed  as  it  was  on 
four  sides — ^by  the  church,  the  state,  the  school, 
and  the  dominant  classes  of  the  population — the 
tongue  of  Hus  and  Comenius  lost  ground  almost 
altogether?  And  who  saved  it  from  utter  extinc- 
tion ?  It  was  the  lowly  peasant  who  continued  giv- 
ing it  shelter  under  his  thatched  roof,  long  after  it 
had  been  expelled  from  the  proud  chateaux  of  the 
nobility  and  disowned  by  the  middle  classes.  The 
peasant  preserved  the  language  for  the  literary 
men  who  rescued  from  oblivion  this  precious  gift 
for  future  generations.  "  It  is  admitted  by  all," 
said  Palacky,  "  that  the  resuscitation  of  the  na- 
tion  was   accomplished   wholly   by   our   writers. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  45 

These  men  saved  the  language;  they  carried  the 
banner  which  they  wished  the  nation  to  follow. 
Literature  was  the  fountain  spring  of  our  national 
life,  and  the  literati  placed  themselves  at  the  fore- 
front of  the  revivalist  movement," 

The  diet  of  the  kingdom  recommended,  in  1790, 
that  Bohemian  should  be  introduced  at  least  in  cer- 
tain secondary  schools,  preferably  in  Prague,  but 
the  Austrian  world  of  officialdom  was  opposed 
even  to  this  concession.  "  No  one  threatens  the 
life  of  the  Bohemian  tongue,"  protested  these  offi- 
cials. "  The  government  cannot  antagonize  the 
feeling  of  the  most  influential  and  wealthiest 
classes  who  use  German,  if  not  exclusively,  at 
least  overwhelmingly.  Moreover,  to  encourage 
Bohemian  would  be  to  lose  sight  of  the  idea  of 
the  unification  of  the  empire.  The  state  must  not 
deprive  the  Bohemians  of  the  blessing  and  of  the 
opportunity  that  emanate  from  the  knowledge  of 
German.  Useful  though  Bohemian  may  be,  its 
study  must  not  be  at  the  expense  of  German." 

Two  important  events,  both  of  which  occurred 
toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  helped 
to  awaken  the  soul  of  the  prostrate  nation.  One 
was  the  determination  of  Emperor  Josef  IL  to 
make  the  empire  a  German  state,  as  has  already 
been  pointed  out.  But  a  greater  incentive  than 
Josef's  coercive  measures  were  the  inspiring  ideals 


46  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

of  the  first  French  Revolution  which  found  their 
way  even  to  far-off  Bohemia.  The  motto  of  the 
French  revolutionists,  "  Liberty,  equality,  frater- 
nity," could  not  fail  to  give  hope  to  the  handful  of 
Bohemian  intellectuals.* 

However,  as  late  as  1848,  the  year  of  revolu- 
tionary changes  in  Austria,  the  Bohemian  lan- 
guage was  still  a  Cinderella  in  its  own  land.  In 
the  streets  of  Prague  it  was  rarely  spoken  by  the 
people  of  any  social  distinction.  To  engage  in 
Bohemian  conversation  with  strangers  was  a  risky 
undertaking,  unless  one  was  prepared  to  be  rebuked 
in  the  sternest  manner.  German  predominated, 
except  in  stores  that  were  patronized  by  appren- 
tices and  peddlers.  Posters  solely  in  Bohemian 
were  not  allowed  by  the  police.  The  text  had 
to  be  translated,  and  the  German  part  of  it  printed 
above  the  Bohemian.  Nowhere  but  in  the  house- 
holds of  the  commonest  classes  was  the  despised 

•  When  Napoleon  sought  to  weaken  Austria's  position  at  home,  he 
addressed  a  patriotic  appeal  to  the  Bohemians.  "  Your  union  with 
Austria,"  read  Napoleon's  appeal,  "  has  been  your  misfortune.  Your 
blood  has  been  shed  for  her  in  distant  lands,  and  your  dearest  in- 
terests have  been  sacrificed  continually  to  those  of  the  hereditary 
provinces.  You  form  the  finest  portion  of  her  empire,  and  you  are 
treated  as  a  mere  province  to  be  used  as  an  instrument  of  passions 
to  which  you  are  strangers.  You  have  national  customs  and  a  na- 
tional language;  you  pride  yourself  on  your  ancient  and  illustrious 
origin.  Assume  once  more  your  position  as  a  nation.  Choose  a  king 
for  yourselves,  who  shall  reign  for  you  alone,  who  shall  dwell  in  your 
midst  and  be  surrounded  by  your  citizens  and  your  soldiers." — Na- 
poleon's proclamation  found  no  echo  among  the  people  for  whom  it 
was  intended.  The  sentiment  of  nationality  was  yet  too  weak  to 
respond. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  47 

tongue  sheltered.  Families  belonging  to  the  world 
of  officialdom  and  to  the  wealthier  bourgeoisie, 
though  often  imperfectly  familiar  with  it,  clung  to 
German.  Strict  etiquette  barred  Bohemian  from 
the  salons.  The  only  entrance  that  was  open  to  it 
led  through  the  halls  of  the  servants.  So  com- 
pletely were  the  people  denationalized  that  for- 
eigners visiting  the  resorts  at  Carlsbad  and  Marien- 
bad  expressed  their  astonishment  on  hearing  the 
peasants  talk  in  an  unknown  tongue.  They  had 
learned  to  look  upon  Bohemia  as  a  part  of  Ger- 
many and  on  the  inhabitants  as  Germans.  Par- 
ticularly the  Russians  and  the  Poles  were  sur- 
prised to  meet  kinsmen  in  Bohemia  whose  language 
sounded  familiar  to  their  ears. 

"  A  few  of  us,"  writes  Jacob  Maly,  one  of  the 
staunch  patriots  of  that  time,  "  met  each  Thurs- 
day at  the  Black  Horse  (a  first-class  hotel  in 
Prague)  and  gave  orders  to  the  waiters  in  Bohe- 
mian, who,  of  course,  understood  us  well.  This  we 
did  with  the  intention  of  giving  encouragement  to 
others ;  but  seeing  the  futility  of  our  efforts  in  this 
direction,  we  gave  up  the  propaganda  in  disgust." 

In  1852,  the  then  chief  of  police  of  Prague  con- 
fidently predicted  that  in  fifty  years  there  would  be 
no  Bohemians  in  Prague.  That  even  Austrian 
Chiefs  of  Police  could  make  a  mistake,  appears 
from  the  fact  that  Greater  Prague  to-day  numbers 


48  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

nearly  6cx),ooo  inhabitants,  of  whom  only  about 
17,000  are  Germans.  When,  in  1844,  Archduke 
Stephen  came  to  Prague  and  the  citizens  arranged 
a  torch  procession  in  his  honor,  the  police  were 
scandalized  to  hear,  mingling  with  the  customary 
"  Vivat,"  shouts  in  Bohemian,  "  Slava !  " 

Authors  and  newspaper  writers  were  objects 
of  unbounded  curiosity,  Maly,  already  quoted, 
relates  the  following:  "Walking  in  the  streets  of 
Prague,  I  often  noticed  people  pointing  at  me  and 
saying :  *  Das  ist  auch  einer  von  den  Vlastenzen ' 
(Here  goes  another  of  those  patriots),  or  '  Das  ist 
ein  gewaltiger  Czeche  '  (There  is  a  thorough  Cech 
for  you).  During  my  stay  in  southern  Bohemia 
in  1838,  the  innkeeper  of  a  tavern  which  I  fre- 
quented evenings  had  surely  no  reason  to  regret 
my  patronage,  for  people  would  come  primarily 
to  have  a  peep  at  me." 

In  the  biography  of  Palacky  *  We  read  an  account 

*  Francis  Palacky  (1798-1876),  historian,  revivalist,  and  statesman, 
is,  by  common  consent,  regarded  as  the  greatest  Bohemian  of  our 
time.  His  monumental  work,  "  History  of  the  Bohemian  Nation," 
on  which  he  labored  some  thirty  years,  will  endure  as  long  as  the 
Bohemian  language  continues  to  be  spoken.  There  was  a  time  when 
not  only  the  outside  world,  but  Bohemians  themselves,  believed  that 
the  old-time  Bohemians  of  the  stormy  days  of  John  Hus  or  those 
who  revolted  against  Ferdinand  II.  were  a  band  of  heretics  and 
rebels.  Such  has  been  the  official  Austrian  version  of  these  events 
in  Bohemia.  However,  the  truth  could  not  be  suppressed  for  all  time. 
Palacky  and  others  were  being  born,  and  in  time  the  alluvium  of 
Austrian  bigotry  and  of  falsehood  was  removed  from  the  nation's 
past,  and  to  the  astonished  gaze  of  Resurrected  Bohemia  was  re- 
vealed a  glorious  history  of  which  descendants  could  be  justly  proud. 
Great  men,  national  heroes,  hitherto  unknown  or  misunderstood, 
emerged  from  almost  every  chapter  of  Palacky's  work. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  49 

of  a  memorable  meeting  of  patriots  held  in  1825 
in  the  Sternberg  Palace  in  Prague.  Palacky  being 
invited  to  dinner  on  that  particular  day,  as  he  often 
had  been,  remained  in  the  company  of  the  Counts 
Sternberg  until  midnight.  A  violent  dispute  that 
arose  between  the  guests  and  the  hosts  would  not 
allow  of  their  separation.  Among  other  ques- 
tions discussed  was  the  prospective  publication  of 
a  scientific  magazine  in  both  languages,  Bohemian 
and  German.  Abbe  Dobrovsky,  the  "  father  of 
Slavic  philology,"  and  Count  Kaspar  were  of  the 
opinion  that  it  was  too  late  to  think  seriously 
of  the  resuscitation  of  the  Bohemian  nation,  and 
that  all  attempts  in  that  direction  must  end  in 
failure.  Palacky,  then  a  youthful  enthusiast,  dis- 
agreed in  this  with  his  elder  companions  and  bit- 
terly reproached  Dobrovsky,  that  he,  a  literary 
light  among  his  people,  had  not  written  a  single 
book  in  the  mother  tongue.  "  Were  we  all  to  do 
the  same,  then  indeed  our  nation  would  perish  for 
lack  of  intellectual  nourishment.  As  for  me,"  fer- 
vently argued  Palacky,  "  were  I  but  a  gypsy  by 
birth,  and  the  last  of  that  race,  I  would  still  deem 
it  my  duty  to  try  to  perpetuate  an  honorable  men- 
tion of  it  in  the  annals  of  mankind."  Count 
Sternberg,  though  he  knew  the  language  well,  never 
used  it  in  conversation  with  people  of  education. 


50  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

He  availed  himself  of  it  only  when  talking  with 
his  servants. 

In  1811  Dobrovsky  wrote  to  the  noted  Slovene 
scholar,  Kopitar,  that  "  the  cause  of  the  nation  is 
desperate,  unless  God  helps."  In  his  discourse, 
"  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  und  ihrer  Sprache  in 
Bohmen,"  dated  1790,  Pelcl  expressed  himself  as 
follows :  "  The  time  is  approaching  when  the  Bo- 
hemian language  will  be  in  the  same  situation  at 
home  as  the  Slavonic  language  is  to-day  in  Miess, 
Brandenburg,  and  Silesia,  where  German  is  every- 
where prevalent  and  where  nothing  remains  of  the 
Slavic  but  the  names  of  cities,  villages,  and  rivers." 

It  stands  to  reason  that  the  language,  returning 
to  its  own  after  a  disuse  of  almost  two  hundred 
years  and  dug  from  the  grave  of  oblivion,  needed 
much  burnishing,  purifying,  and  modernizing. 
Terminology  of  arts  and  sciences,  that  flourished 
while  the  language  lay  dormant,  had  to  be  created. 
Dictionaries,  grammars,  and  histories  had  to  be 
compiled.  Above  all,  the  dross  of  alien  forms  had 
to  be  removed  and,  while  the  old  Bohemian  of 
Hus,  Comenius,  and  Blahoslav  constituted  an  inex- 
haustible store  of  material,  it  was  necessary  to 
borrow  from  kindred  Slavic  tongues  and  to  coin 
many  modern  terms. 

That  the  older  writers  composed  some  of  their 
works  in  German  seems  paradoxical  (German  in 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  51 

these  instances  was  used  to  defeat  German),  yet  it 
was  natural,  considering  the  low  state  of  Bohemian 
culture  and  the  corresponding  literary  excellence 
in  neighboring  Germany,  Thus,  John  Kollar,  the 
apostle  of  literary  Pan-Slavism,  wrote  his  main 
work  in  German.  Josef  Dobrovsky,  already  men- 
tioned, composed  all  his  works  in  German.  Josef 
Safarik's  monumental  volume  on  "  Slavic  An- 
tiquities "  was  also  written  in  German ;  even  the 
"  Father  of  his  country,"  Francis  Palacky,  wrote 
his  "  History  of  the  Bohemian  Nation  "*  in  the 
tongue  of  Schiller  and  Goethe.  When,  in  183 1,  a 
number  of  writers  gathered  in  a  well-known  coffee- 
house in  Prague,  Celakovsky,  one  of  them,  re- 
marked, half  jokingly  and  half  seriously,  that 
Bohemian  letters  would  perish  should  the  ceiling 
of  the  room  where  they  were  chatting  fall  and  kill 
those  present. 

The  literary  men  and  the  **  vlastenci  "  (patriots) 
were  looked  upon  by  many  people  with  good- 
natured  tolerance.  Enemies  of  the  cause  regarded 
them  with  ill-concealed  suspicion,  not  infrequently 
with  contempt,  while  the  government,  distrusting 
everything  that  was  new,  suspected  them  of  dan- 
gerous intrigues  against  the  safety  of  the  state. 
It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  was  no  political 
freedom  in  Austria  then;  matters  of  public  con- 

•  S«€  page  59. 


52  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

cern  were  not  allowed  to  be  discussed,  much  less 
criticised,  except  among  intimates. 

The  work  of  resuscitating  a  dying  race  was  a 
gigantic  task,  and  but  for  the  perseverance  of  the 
first  apostles,  the  most  promising  branch  of  the 
Slavic  linden  tree  would  have  withered.  It  was 
necessary  to  build  theatres,  to  found  learned  so- 
cieties, to  establish  museums  and  libraries,  to  col- 
lect and  edit  rare  books  and  manuscripts  scattered 
in  foreign  countries,  whither  they  had  been  carried 
by  soldiers  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  The 
Austrian  Government,  instead  of  assisting  in  this 
work  which  had  for  its  object  the  uplifting  of  a 
down-trodden  people  from  ignorance,  superstition, 
and  bigotry,  hindered  it  at  every  step.  As  an  ex- 
ample of  self-sacrificing  patriotism,  the  case  of  a 
law  student  by  the  name  of  Rehor  should  be  men- 
tioned. This  man  took  a  vow  that  he  would  dis- 
tribute as  many  Bohemian  books  as  were  said  to 
have  been  burnt  by  the  Jesuit  Konias  during  the 
anti-reformation,  that  is,  60,000  volumes.  Rehof 
died  some  time  in  the  late  fifties  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  he  is  said  to  have  accomplished  the 
greater  part  of  his  self-imposed  task.  When 
Jungmann,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  revivalists, 
died  in  1847,  the  patriots  had  an  opportunity  to 
review  their  growing  ranks  and  they  were  aston- 
ished how  the  national  movement  had   spread. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  53 

"  When  we  were  returning  home  from  the  fu- 
neral," noted  J.  V.  Fric  in  his  memoirs,  "  I  walked 
arm  in  arm  with  my  father;  we  both  felt  proud 
like  victors  who  were  marching  to  further  decisive 
battles.  When  father  in  the  evening  sat  down  for 
a  chat  with  the  family,  he  exclaimed,  breathing 
freely  as  if  a  stone  had  rolled  off  his  chest,  *  Chil- 
dren, I  think  we  shall  win ;  there  are  too  many  of 
us;  they  can  no  longer  trample  us  down.'  " 

POLITICAL  AWAKENING 

Up  to  1848  Austrian  subjects  enjoyed  cer- 
tain liberties:  they  could  smoke,  drink,  and  play 
cards  without  interference  from  the  police.  One 
enjoyment,  however,  was  denied  to  them — they 
were  not  permitted  to  think.  Prince  Mettemich, 
the  personification  of  absolutist  Austria  of  those 
days,  observed  with  alarm  how  the  structure  that 
he  had  been  propping  for  years  was  beginning  to 
settle  in  its  foundations,  and  how  ominous  cracks 
appeared  in  it  here  and  there. 

Revolution  was  in  the  air.  Switzerland,  Ger- 
many, and  Italy  were  being  engulfed  by  it.  "  The 
world  is  ill,"  Metternich  complained  in  a  letter  to 
Count  Apponyi.  "  Each  day  we  can  observe  how 
the  moral  infection  is  spreading,  and  if  you  find  me 
unyielding,  it  is  because  I  am  of  a  nature  that  will 
not  give  in  before  opposition." 


54  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

The  news  of  the  fall  of  Louis  Philippe  in  France 
reached  Prague  February  29,  1848.  Next  day, 
notwithstanding  the  strictest  censorship,  the  city 
was  aflame  with  revolutionary  talk.  The  liberals 
in  neighboring  Germany  had  summoned  delegates 
to  meet  at  Frankfort,  March  5th.  Italy  seethed 
with  political  excitement.  Kossuth,  in  Hungary, 
demanded  that  a  constitution  be  granted  to  the 
people  in  Austria.  Overnight  Metternich's  elabo- 
rate system  of  government,  maintained  by  the 
police  and  the  military,  was  tumbling  down  like 
a  house  of  cards.  In  Prague,  as  in  other  large 
centres,  everybody  clamored  for  a  constitution, 
though  the  masses,  educated  as  they  were  to  re- 
gard the  government  as  something  above  and  apart 
from  them,  hardly  comprehended  what  the  word 
"  constitution  "  meant. 

In  the  midst  of  the  turmoil  the  sickly  Emperor 
Ferdinand  V.  (1835-1848)  abdicated  in  favor  of 
his  nephew,  Francis  Josef,  then  a  youth  of  eighteen. 
The  latter  had  been  on  the  throne  but  a  few  weeks, 
when  his  advisers,  Schwarzenberg,  Windischgratz, 
Stadion,  and  others,  decided  to  do  away  with  the 
constitution  of  the  revolutionists  and  to  substitute 
it  with  an  octroy  constitution,  the  reason  assigned 
being  "  the  incapacity  of  parliament."  The  choice 
fell  on  this  particular  young  man  because  Prince 
Schwarzenberg  recommended  as  ruler  "  one  whom 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  55 

he  would  not  have  to  be  ashamed  to  show  to  the 
troops."  Though  not  relevant,  it  is  interesting  to 
recall  how  the  present  emperor  acquired  his  cog- 
nomen. "  What  shall  it  be,  gentlemen,"  asked 
Schwarzenberg  in  the  ministerial  council — "  Fran- 
cis Josef,  or  simply  Francis  ?  "  A  sub-secretary  of 
state  thought  that  plain  Francis  would  sound 
very  well  indeed,  but  the  fear  having  been  ex- 
pressed that  the  name  Francis  might  remind  the 
Austrian  nations  too  much  of  the  ghost  of  Metter- 
nich,  Francis  Josef,  instead  of  plain  Francis,  was 
chosen  for  the  youthful  monarch. 

To  Windischgratz  constitutions,  ministries  ac- 
countable to  the  people,  and  parliaments  were 
abominations.  He  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that 
he  was  opposed  to  the  rule  of  lawyers;  those  alone 
who  carried  bayonets  and  muskets  were  entitled  to 
be  called  patriots  and  saviors  of  the  fatherland. 

Under  the  Premiership  of  Alexander  Bach 
(1853-1859)  the  monarchy  relapsed  to  the  methods 
of  police  rule  that  obtained  prior  to  1848.  The 
reactionaries  who  surrounded  the  throne  encour- 
aged the  youthful  monarch  to  rule  like  an  autocrat. 

Minister  Bach,  by  the  way  a  highly  gifted  man, 
who  had  in  his  early  days  trifled  with  radicalism, 
believed  that  an  alliance  between  the  church  and 
the  state  would  strengthen  both  and  that  against 
the  unity  of  the  altar  and  the  throne  the  radicals 


56  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

would  be  powerless.  "  The  Austrian  Monarchy," 
he  confided  to  a  noted  clerical,  *'  considering  its 
peculiar  structure,  has  only  two  firm  bases  on 
which  it  can  rest  in  safety  and  unity, — the  dynasty 
and  the  church."  Accordingly  he  brought  about, 
in  1855,  the  adoption  of  the  famous  concordat,  a 
convention  between  the  pope  and  the  monarchy, 
a  pact  that  increased  immensely  the  legal  power  of 
the  papacy  in  Austria.  The  concordat  was  abol- 
ished in  1868  because  of  the  bitter  opposition  of 
the  liberals.  Bohemia,  the  land  of  Hus  and 
Havlicek,  fought  the  concordat  openly  and  fear- 
lessly, suspecting  in  it  a  hidden  menace  to  its 
freedom  of  conscience  and  to  national  aspirations. 

The  uncompromising  opposition  of  the  Bohe- 
mians to  Bach  and  to  his  policies  visited  upon  them 
the  wrath  of  Vienna.  Under  ^.ach  they  were  prob- 
ably subjected  to  oppression  more  ruthless  and 
cruel  than  any  they  had  experienced  since  the  time 
of  Ferdinand  II. 

Patriots,  some  of  them  mere  youths,  were 
thrown  in  prison  on  the  flimsiest  accusation  of 
police  spies.  It  was  not  safe  to  converse  in  Bo- 
hemian in  the  streets  of  Prague.  Spies  were  at 
the  heels  of  every  Bohemian  prominent  in  public 
life.  Police  agents  tried  to  connect  Francis  L. 
Rieger  with  a  treasonable  plot  to  disrupt  the  mon- 
archy and  he  had  to  flee  the  state  to  save  himself 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  57 

from  prison.  Spies  followed  Palacky  even  to  the 
sick-bed  of  his  wife.  The  military  authorities 
at  Prague  suspended  the  publication  of  Havlicek's 
famous  newspaper,  "  Narodni  Noviny,"  on  the 
ground  that  its  editor  indulged  in  "  immoderate 
language."  Finding  Prague  closed  to  his  paper, 
Havlicek  made  an  attempt  to  publish  it  in  Vienna. 
"  I  am  determined  not  to  issue  licenses  to  any 
newspaper  in  Vienna ;  we  have  enough  newspapers 
as  it  is,"  replied  General  Welden  to  Havlicek's 
application  for  the  license.  "  But  there  is  no  such 
newspaper  in  Vienna  as  I  should  like  to  publish," 
pleaded  Havlicek.  "  My  paper  is  intended  to  be 
an  organ  for  Slavic  matters  and  it  is  to  be  printed 
in  Bohemian."  Welden  retorted  angrily:  "  Wir 
sind  hier  Deutsche  "  (Here  in  Vienna  we  are  Ger- 
mans), and  the  General's  decision  was  irrevocable. 
Undaunted,  Havlicek  made  other  attempts  to 
procure  a  newspaper  license,  and  at  last  he  ob- 
tained a  promise  that  he  might  be  allowed  to 
publish  a  paper  in  Kutna  Hora,  a  provincial  town 
not  far  from  Prague.  In  time  even  this  paper  was 
suppressed  by  the  police  and  its  editor  arrested  and 
interned  in  the  province  of  Tyrol  by  Bach's  order. 
It  should,  perhaps,  be  said  that  Havlicek  was  the 
one  journalist  whom  neither  threats  nor  offers  of 
bribery  could  influence.  There,  separated  from  his 
wife  and  child,  Havlicek  gave  way  to  brooding 


58  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

which  brought  on  a  fatal  brain  disease.  From 
Tyrol  he  was  permitted  to  return  home,  broken 
in  health  and  spirit.  To  the  last  Havlicek  remained 
steadfast  to  the  cause  he  had  championed — the 
liberation  from  bondage  of  his  nation.  Havlicek's 
colors  were  red  and  white  (Bohemian  national 
colors),  and  neither  threats  nor  favors  could 
swerve  him  from  his  chosen  path :  *  "  They  ban- 
ished you  from  the  fatherland,"  wrote  Pinkas  to 
Havlicek,  "  but  they  transformed  the  fatherland 
itself  into  a  fortress  and  a  jail.  We  live  here  the 
most  unhappy  lives  conceivable.  Not  a  ray  of  light 
enters  our  intellectual  prison  to  brighten  it." 

The  mere  acquaintanceship  with  Palacky  was 
enough  to  expose  one  to  the  chicanery  of  the  police. 
Strobach,  at  one  time  Mayor  of  Prague  and  a 
former  speaker  of  the  short-lived  parliament,  was 
deposed  as  judge  because,  when  presiding  at  a 
trial,  he  failed  to  hold  a  drunkard  on  a  charge  of 
lese  majeste.  Count  Thun  would  not  allow  Rieger 
to  lecture  at  the  university  for  the  reason,  as  he 

*  Karel  Havlicek  (1821-1856)  is  in  many  respects  the  most  note- 
worthy Bohemian  of  the  nineteenth  century.  As  a  journalist,  be  had 
no  equal  among  his  contemporaries.  His  political  articles  were  models 
of  sound  and  mature  reasoning  and  of  lucid  thinking.  When  argu- 
ments failed  with  the  black  reactionaries,  lay  and  ecclesiastic,  Havlicek 
employed  another  weapon  with  telling  eflFect — ridicule.  Bohemians 
venerate  him  as  a  martyr  of  their  cause.  The  cultured  immigrants 
to  the  United  States  from  Bohemia  in  the  early  days  were  imbued 
with  Havlicek's  spirit  and  ideas,  and  the  present-day  spread  of  free- 
thought  among  them  is  directly  traceable  to  this  Thomas  Faine  of 
Bohemia. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  59 

stated,  "  that  students  would  see  in  him  a  political 
agitator,  not  a  professor." 

A  demand  was  made  on  Palacky  by  the  censor 
to  strike  out  of  his  "  History  of  the  Bohemian 
Nation  "  the  chapters  relating  to  Hus  and  the  Hus- 
site Wars.  Even  Prince  Metternich,  whose  bu- 
reaucratic leanings  were  above  suspicion,  consid- 
ered the  demand,  which  was  equivalent  to  an  order, 
unreasonable.  After  a  great  deal  of  haggling  as  to 
what  was  permissible  and  what  should  be  deleted, 
a  compromise  was  effected  between  the  historian 
and  the  censor.  However,  Palacky's  biographers  all 
agreed  that  the  terms  of  the  compromise  were  not 
satisfactory  to.  him.  He  is  said  to  have  expressed 
a  hope  that  future  historians,  living  in  freer  times 
than  he,  should  tell  the  whole  truth  about  the  im- 
portance and  meaning  of  the  Hussite  movement, 
which  he  was  not  allowed  to  do.  The  chapters  re- 
lating to  the  Hussite  times  he  wrote  both  in  Bo- 
hemian and  German,  But  because  German  critics 
had  impugned  his  impartiality,  he  determined,  as 
a  protest,  to  continue  with  Bohemian  as  the  original 
and  German  as  a  translation.  When  he  announced 
his  decision  to  the  Land  Committee,  a  protest  was 
raised  and  he  was  warned  not  to  publish  the 
Bohemian  text  before  the  German ;  nor  to  do  any- 
thing from  which  it  might  appear  that  the  German 
text  was  not  the  original. 


60  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

The  famous  physician,  Hamernik,  a  pupil  of  the 
noted  Skoda  and  Rokytansky,  was  removed  from 
the  university  because  the  government  suspected 
his  political  and  religious  views. 

The  publication  of  every  Bohemian  newspaper 
in  the  land  was  suspended,  except  for  two  or  three 
scientific  and  literary  magazines,  and  the  police 
would  have  liked  to  destroy  even  those,  if  decent 
pretext  could  have  been  found  for  their  doing  so. 

At  one  time  the  authorities  were  planning  to 
dissolve  the  society  of  the  Bohemian  Museum  and 
the  Royal  Society  of  Science's.  The  discussions 
of  these  learned  bodies  did  not  seem  patriotic 
enough  from  the  Austrian  point  of  view.  The 
Matice  Ceska — a  society  for  the  publication  of 
standard  literature — was  threatened  in  its  exist- 
ence, and  only  the  influence  of  some  of  its  promi- 
nent members  saved  it  from  the  fury  of  the  al- 
mighty police. 

Pogodin,  the  Russian  scholar,  had  recommended 
the  Matice  to  publish  the  works  of  Hus.  "  God 
prevent,"  answered  Safafik  to  Pogodin's  letter 
(1857).  "  Who  would  think  of  publishing  books 
on  Hus  in  Austria? — yes,  if  they  were  against  Hus 
— ^that  would  be  simple." 

Before  Krejci's  work  on  geology  could  be  pub- 
lished, every  page,  nay  every  line,  was  carefully 
scanned,  and  when  that  was  done  the  manuscript 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  61 

was  ordered  to  be  submitted  for  approval  to  a 
learned  priest,  to  make  sure  that  it  contained  noth- 
ing contrary  to  the  teaching  of  the  church. 
Palacky,  who  was  always  dreaming  of  his  pet 
scheme  of  the  publication  of  a  Bohemian  encyclo- 
pedia, was  told  that  "  under  the  existing  press  laws 
it  would  be  unwise  to  urge  the  matter," 

In  honor  of  the  emperor's  marriage  (1854)  the 
government  showed  clemency  to  certain  political 
persons;  yet,  in  general,  conditions  remained  un- 
changed. Patriots  who  had  been  expelled  from 
Prague  could  return,  but  city  or  country,  their 
movements  were  watched  by  the  police.  Slad- 
kovsky,  a  famous  journalist  whose  publications 
had  been  ruined  by  censorship,  applied  for  a  license 
to  start  a  coal  yard  with  which  to  support 
his  family.  The  application  was  promptly  dis- 
allowed. Young  Fric,  a  literary  rebel,  planned  to 
issue  a  volume  of  poetry  with  the  collaboration  of 
the  younger  set  of  writers.  This  warning  was  re- 
ceived from  Vienna :  "  Let  Fric  beware ;  if  he  does 
not  desist  in  his  dangerous  course,  he  may  again 
find  himself  interned  in  a  fortress."  The  police 
directors  and  press  censors  suspected  the  loyalty 
of  everyone  who  ventured  to  write  in  Bohemian. 
*'  I  fail  to  comprehend,"  remonstrated  Police  Di- 
rector Weber  with  Fric,  "  why  you  persist  in  this 
ridiculous  nonsense;  in  about  six  years  there  will 


6«  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

be  nothing  left  of  your  Bohemian  Hterature,  any- 
way." 

On  another  occasion  Weber  gave  Fric  to  under- 
stand that  Bohemia  was  a  German  territory,  and 
that  if  he  wished  to  live  in  it  he  must  obey  German 
laws.  Yet  Fric  was  incorrigible.  For  his  intract- 
ability and  because  he  would  not  share  Weber's 
view  that  his  nation  was  doomed  to  extinction,  he 
was  banished  to  the  hills  of  Transylvania. 

On  the  battlefields  at  Magenta  and  Solferino  in 
Italy  in  1859,  the  absolutist  rule  of  Bach,  which 
derived  its  chief  support  from  the  bureaucracy, 
the  military,  and  the  clerical  party,  came  to  an 
abrupt  end.  The  progressive  element  clamored  for 
reforms.  Bach  was  dismissed  from  office  and  his 
successor  (Goluchowski)  announced  that  in  the 
future  the  state  budget  would  be  subject  to  the 
scrutiny  of  the  people  and  that  provincial  diets 
would  be  invited  to  legislate  on  their  needs.  The 
last  part  of  the  program  the  federalists  interpreted 
to  mean  that  the  principle  of  local  self-government 
had  at  last  been  recognized. 

In  the  Bohemian  Diet  a  prominent  member,  en- 
couraged by  the  program  of  the  new  premier, 
moved,  amid  genuine  enthusiasm  of  the  federalists, 
that  a  deputation  of  the  diet  be  appointed  to  go 
to  Vienna  and  urge  the  emperor  to  have  himself 
crowned  king  in  Prague.    When,  subsequently,  a 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  6S 

deputation  of  the  diet  secured  an  audience  from 
the  ruler,  he  declared  (1861)  :  "I  will  be  crowned 
in  Prague  as  King  of  Bohemia,  and  I  am  con- 
vinced that  this  ceremony  will  cement  anew  the  in- 
dissoluble tie  of  confidence  and  loyalty  between 
My  throne  and  My  Bohemian  Kingdom." 

Bohemians  were  elated.  At  last  their  ideal  of 
autonomous  Bohemia  seemed  at  the  point  of  real- 
ization. 

Here  a  few  words  should  be  said  concerning 
the  constitution  under  which  Austrians  were 
to  begin  a  new  parliamentary  life.  The  much- 
heralded  and  impatiently  awaited  document  was 
drafted  by  Minister  Schmerling,  a  staunch  cen- 
tralist, and  because  it  was  promulgated  in  Febru- 
ary (1861)  it  was  called  the  "Constitution  of 
February."  As  soon  as  its  text  had  been  made 
public,  the  Slavs  instantly  recognized  that  the 
statesmen  in  Vienna  had  not  profited  in  the  slight- 
est from  the  lessons  of  1848.  Minister  Schmer- 
ling, was,  like  all  Germans,  obsessed  with  the  no- 
tion that  German  hegemony  was  indispensable  to 
the  safety  and  greatness  of  the  state.  Accordingly 
he  subordinated  every  other  idea  and  interest  to 
that  one  obsession.  A  most  ingenious  electoral  sys- 
tem was  evolved  whereby  Germans,  though  in 
minority,  were  able  to  control,  not  only  the  central 
parliament,  but  the  provincial  diets  as  well.     The 


64  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

scheme  was  to  favor  the  cities,  wealthy  individual 
taxpayers,  and  chambers  of  commerce  (which 
groups  then  were  German  in  sentiment)  to  the  dis- 
advantage of  the  agricultural  districts  inhabited 
by  the  Slavs.  How  the  electoral  law  worked  in 
Bohemia  one  can  perceive  from  the  fact  that  in 
1873  2,500,000  Bohemians  were  able  to  elect  only 
34  deputies,  while  1,500,000  Germans  contrived 
to  return  56  deputies.  The  powers  of  the  provin- 
cial diets  were  reduced  to  a  minimum,  the  control- 
ling idea,  of  course,  being  to  keep  centred  in 
Vienna  the  entire  power  of  the  state.  By  reason 
of  this  juggling  the  Bohemian  element  found  it- 
self in  minority  in  its  own  Land  Diet. 

Although  distrustful  because  of  the  partisanship 
evinced  in  the  constitution,  the  Bohemians  never- 
theless entered  parliament,  but  they  did  so  upon 
the  express  understanding  that  their  participation 
therein  should  not  be  in  any  manner  prejudicial  to 
the  historical  rights  of  their  kingdom. 

Generally  speaking,  the  Austrian  nations,  from 
the  very  first  day  their  representatives  were  per- 
mitted to  enter  the  legislative  halls,  divided  them- 
selves into  two  political  parties,  federalists  and  cen- 
tralists. The  federalists  favored  granting  self-gov- 
ernment to  the  various  races ;  the  centralists,  who 
were  backed  by  the  German  masses,  opposed  this. 
Austria,  according  to  the  latter,  was  lost  to  the  Ger- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  65 

man  cause  the  moment  the  agitation  "  Away  from 
Vienna  "  had  gained  the  upper  hand.  For  reasons 
of  self-protection  the  Slavs,  led  by  the  Bohemians, 
inclined  toward  federalism,  as  more  likely  to  sat- 
isfy their  national  aspirations.  Instead  of  a  Teu- 
tonic Austria,  the  Slavs  desired  a  United  States 
of  Austria  that  should  be  just  and  impartial  to  all. 

For  months  the  Bohemians  waited,  but  to  their 
surprise  and  dismay  the  government  took  no  steps 
to  make  effective  the  emperor's  promise.  On  the 
contrary,  the  increasing  persecution  of  their  press, 
the  brutal  partiality  of  the  speaker  of  parliament, 
the  hostile  attitude  of  the  executive  organs  of  the 
government  were  signs,  the  significance  of  which 
could  not  be  doubted.  The  discouraging  truth 
dawned  on  them  at  last  that  the  emperor  had  no 
intention  of  keeping  his  word  and  of  giving  home 
rule  to  his  Bohemian  subjects. 

Deceived  by  their  sovereign  and  realizing 
that  neither  reason  nor  justice  would  influence 
Vienna,  they  decided,  in  1863,  as  a  means  of  pro- 
test and  to  show  their  deep  resentment,  to  leave  the 
parliament  in  a  body.  On  June  17th  of  that  year 
they  issued  a  statement  in  which  the  grievances 
of  the  nation  were  set  forth  at  length.  For  sixteen 
years  after  that  no  Bohemian  legislator  appeared 
in  the  Austrian  Parliament.  And  while  this  may 
not  have  been  a  sagacious  course — indeed,  sub- 


66  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

sequent  events  have  shown  that  the  "  policy  of 
abstinence,"  as  the  parliamentary  boycott  came  to 
be  known,  almost  irreparably  prejudiced  their  posi- 
tion— yet,  as  a  protest  of  an  outraged  nation,  it 
was  magnificent. 

DUALISM— A   BLUNDER   AND   A  CRIME 

Up  to  1867  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  was,  out- 
wardly at  least,  a  Teutonic  state.  But  in  1866, 
having  been  decisively  beaten  by  Prussia  at  Sadova, 
it  found  itself  facing  a  new  destiny.  Expelled 
from  the  Germanic  Bund  of  which  it  had  been  a 
leading  member,  the  championship  wrested  from 
it  by  victorious  Hohenzollerns,  rent  by  internal 
discord,  its  statesmen  concurred  in  the  opinion 
that  reconstruction  of  some  kind  was  inevitable. 
But  what  course  of  action  should  be  pursued? 
Should  the  government  again  have  recourse  to  the 
shop-worn  policy  of  rigid  centralization  and  Grer- 
manization  which  had  been  tried  by  Austrian 
Premiers  time  and  time  again  and  invariably  found 
wanting  ? 

That  Hungary  should  be  given  back  her  auton- 
omy was  conceded  beforehand.  Weakened  by  war, 
its  military  prestige  shattered,  its  finances  at  a  low 
ebb,  the  government  was  in  no  condition  to  resist 
the  Magyars,  who  had  assumed  a  threatening  atti- 
tude.    But  what  about  the  Bohemians,  who  also 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  67 

clamored  for  recognition?  Bohemia,  Hungary, 
and  Austria,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  formed  a 
union  in  1526- 1527  on  terms  of  equality.  And 
then  how  should  the  larger  Slavic  questions  be 
settled  ?  Numerically  the  Slavs  were  the  strongest 
element  in  the  monarchy.  H  allowed  to  elect  repre- 
sentatives to  one  central  parliament,  these  discon- 
tented Bohemians,  Poles,  Slovaks,  and  Croatians 
might  one  day,  uniting  politically,  control  the  coun- 
try. Tacitly  Vienna  and  Budapest  agreed  that, 
whatever  the  terms  of  the  settlement  with  Hun- 
gary, the  disaster  of  Slavic  majority  must  be 
averted. 

"  The  Slavs  must  be  pressed  to  the  wall " 
(Man  wird  die  Slaven  an  die  Wand  driicken), 
declared  a  statesman  who  participated  actively  in 
the  plan  of  reconstruction.  "  You,"  addressing 
the  Magyars,  "  will  take  care  of  your  hosts  [mean- 
ing the  Slavs]  and  we  shall  take  care  of  ours." 

In  the  parliament  the  cause  of  the  Slavic  fed- 
eralists was  lost  beforehand;  a  German-made 
constitution  and  German-made  electoral  law  ren- 
dered futile  every  opposition.  Besides,  the  govern- 
ment would  brook  no  interference  with  its  plan  of 
reconstruction  as  outlined  by  Count  Beust.*    This 

•  Friedrich  Ferdinand  Beust,  a  Saxon  statesman,  entered  the  serv- 
ices of  Austria  soon  after  the  disaster  at  Sadova.  It  was  he  who 
brought  to  a  successful  termination  the  Settlement  between  Vienna 
and  Hungary.     The  centralists  were  at  first  opposed  to  the  division 


eS  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

plan  contemplated  a  dual  government,  one  in 
Vienna,  the  other  in  Budapest,  and  three  parlia- 
ments, one  to  sit  in  Vienna  for  the  Austrian  half, 
one  to  meet  in  Budapest  for  the  Hungarian  half, 
and  a  third  one  to  be  called  the  "  Delegations  " 
and  to  convene  alternately  at  both  capitals  to  de- 
liberate on  matters  common  to  the  empire  as 
a  w^hole,  such  as  foreign  relations,  the  army, 
navy,  finances,  and  so  forth.  In  other  words, 
Beust's  plan  provided  for  tv^^o  seats  of  centraliza- 
tion instead  of  one.  From  a  German  state  that  it 
had  been  before  1867  Austria  became  a  German- 
Magyar  state — an  organization  without  precedent 
or  analogy. 

The  several  kingdoms,  crown-lands,  etc.,  were 
divided  under  Beust's  plan;  and,  upon  the  consum- 
mation of  the  deal,  were  allotted  to  the  contract- 
ing parties  to  the  dualism  as  follows:  Austria 
received  Bohemia,  Moravia,  Silesia,  Bukovina,  Dal- 
matia,  Galicia,  Carinthia,  Carniola,  Trieste  and  vi- 
cinity, Goritz  and  Gradiska,  Istria,  Lower  Austria, 
Upper  Austria,  Salzburg,  Styria,  Tyrol,  Voralberg. 
Hungary  secured  as  her  part  of  the  bargain  Hun- 
gary Proper,  Transylvania,  Fiume,  Croatia,  Sla- 
vonia,  and  the  Military  Frontier. 

of  Austria  in  two,  but  were  eventually  placated  by  Beust,  he  having 
convinced  them  that  dualism  meant  the  permanent  subjugation  of  the 
Slavs.  The  above  remark,  "  Die  Slaven  wcrden  an  die  Wand 
gedrtickt,"  is  attributed  to  him. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  69 

Figures,  better  than  anything  else,  will  explain 
why  the  Slavs  were  opposed  to  dualism  and  pres- 
ently became  its  irreconcilable  enemies.  Under 
the  Austrian  roof  Beust  put  these  Slavic  groups 
(quoting  from  the  census  of  1910)  : 

Bohemians    6,435,983 

Poles 4,967,984 

Slovenes   1,252,940 

Serbo-Croatians 783,334 

Little  Russians 3,608,844 

Total 17,049,085 

Under  the  Magyar  domination  fell  the  follow- 
ing Slavs: 

Slovaks 1,967,970 

Croatians    1,833,167 

Serbs     1,106,471 

Little  Russians   472,587 

5.380,195 

Beust's  scheme  was  audaciously  clever.  By 
dividing  the  monarchy  in  two  he  divided  the  Slavs; 
and,  separated  and  isolated,  they  were  made  easier 
victims  of  Magyarization  in  Hungary  and  of  Ger- 
manization  in  Austria.  A  crying  injustice  of  this 
shameful  bargain  was  that  the  "  high  contracting 


70  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

parties  "  tore  apart  peoples  of  the  same  race,  set- 
ting up  a  political  barrier  where  nature  intended 
that  none  should  exist,  Austria,  for  instance,  had 
been  awarded  Dalmatia,  the  population  of  which 
is  almost  wholly  Croatian;  yet  Slavonia  and 
Croatia,  which  is  also  Croatian  to  the  core  (or 
Serbo-Croation),  went  to  Hungary.  Bohemians  of 
Bohemia,  Moravia,  and  Silesia  were  lodged  under 
the  Austrian  roof ;  the  Slovaks,  on  the  other  side, 
who  are  almost  one  with  the  Bohemian  race,  were 
put  under  the  guardianship  of  Hungary.  Nations 
and  races  were  moved  on  the  Austrian  chess-board 
like  so  many  pawns — exactly  the  same  way  as  at 
the  Vienna  Congress  in  1814  and  at  the  Berlin 
Conference  in  1878. 

"  No  people  in  the  monarchy  were  more  unjustly 
prejudiced  by  dualism  than  the  Bohemians,"  is  the 
opinion  of  Denis.  "  Every  article  of  the  Settle- 
ment affected  their  interests  most  adversely.  Their 
kinsmen,  the  Croatians  and  Serbs,  and  particularly 
the  Slovaks — the  latter  always  confidently  looked 
upon  as  a  reserve  force  of  the  nation — were  handed 
out  to  merciless  and  unfeeling  masters.  The  crown 
of  St.  Vaclav  (St. Vaclav  is  honored  as  patron  saint 
of  Bohemia)  was  reduced  by  Vienna  to  a  position 
of  semi-vassalage  and  given  equal  rank  with  a 
medley  of  outlying  and  insignificant  provinces. 
Dualism  condemned  the  Slavs  to  be  the  unwilling 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  71 

tools  of  a  policy  to  which  they  had  been  opposed. 
Bohemia,  the  richest  and  most  productive  land  in 
the  empire,  was  made  to  bear  the  heaviest  quota  of 
the  burden  with  which  statesmen  had  saddled  the 
Austrian  half  of  the  monarchy."  Condemning 
dualism,  Dr.  Edward  Gregr,  in  a  famous  speech 
delivered  in  parliament,  declared  "  that  it  would 
be  wisest  to  tear  down  to  its  foundations  the  ram- 
shackle building  that  made  every  tenant  dissatis- 
fied, that  lacked  light  and  air,  that  neither  expense 
nor  labor  could  make  habitable,  and  to  build  upon 
the  ruins  an  edifice  answering  the  manifold  needs 
of  its  inhabitants.  In  the  judgment  of  Dr. 
Menger"  (a  German  deputy),  thundered  Gregr, 
"  this  would  be  a  treason  and  I  confess  that  it 
would  be  a  treason.  Yet,  is  not  dualism  a  treason 
on  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  peoples  of  this 
state  and  particularly  on  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
our  Bohemian  nation  ?  " 

And  because  the  settlement  between  Austria 
and  Hungary  had  been  effected  without  the  co- 
operation, much  less  the  consent  of  the  Bohemians, 
whose  claims  were  utterly  disregarded — it  will  be 
remembered  that  at  that  time,  1867,  they  were 
boycotting  the  parliament — a  series  of  political 
duels  were  fought  between  Vienna  and  Prague, 
which  in  the  end  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the 
weaker  antagonist,  that  is,  Prague. 


72  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

In  the  spring  of  1867  the  Prague  Diet  was  sum- 
moned to  elect  deputies  to  the  parhament  which 
was  to  vote  on  the  settlement  with  Hungary.  The 
Bohemians  refused  to  elect  such  deputies  and  en- 
tered instead  a  vigorous  protest  against  being  in- 
corporated in  Austria-Hungary,  then  in  process  of 
formation.  The  only  state  they  recognized  was 
the  Bohemian  Kingdom  and  this  had  as  much  right 
to  autonomy  as  Hungary.  Promptly  the  govern- 
ment dissolved  the  diet  and  ordered  new  elections. 
At  these  elections,  thanks  to  the  ingenious  electoral 
law,  the  Bohemians  were  defeated  and  the  German 
minority,  now  master  in  the  diet,  proceeded  to  elect 
delegates  to  the  Vienna  Parliament.  The  Bo- 
hemians declared  this  election  unconstitutional  and 
fraudulent.  Deputies  so  elected,  they  maintained, 
were  not  true  representatives  of  the  people  and 
could  not,  therefore,  legally  or  morally  bind 
the  nation  in  parliament.  Having  issued  this  pro- 
test, the  Bohemians  left  the  diet,  and  the  next 
year,  instead  of  returning,  issued  their  memorable 
Declaration  of  Rights,  bearing  date  August  22, 
1868.  They  continued  to  boycott  the  Land  Diet 
until  1870. 

The  government  was  by  no  means  tardy  in  mak- 
ing the  rebels  feel  that  they  needed  to  be  disci- 
plined for  their  refusal  to  participate  in  the  labors 
of   the  parliament.    The   Director   of   Police   in 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  73 

Prague  received  orders  to  see  to  it  "  that  Bohe- 
mian newspapers  moderate  their  tone."  That,  of 
course,  meant  the  inevitable  lawsuits,  police 
chicanery,  confiscation,  fines,  jail. 

To  break  the  rebellious  spirit  of  the  Bohemians 
the  government  sent  Baron  Koller  to  Prague,  as 
Military  Governor, — a  soldier  of  the  Radecky  type 
of  Austrian  generals — brutal,  violent.  One  of  his 
first  acts  was  to  place  the  capital  under  martial 
law  (1868).  Koller  suspended  the  publication  of 
nearly  every  Bohemian  newspaper.  Arrests  for 
political  crimes  became  so  numerous  that  the  jail 
of  the  New  Town  (one  of  the  Boroughs  of 
Prague)  held  at  one  time  400  prisoners,  though 
there  was  room  only  for  250  persons.  During 
1868  in  Prague  alone  Koller  sent  to  jail  144  per- 
sons who  were  convicted  of  political  misdemeanors 
and  crimes.  The  total  penalties  aggregated  81 
years.  How  many  prisoners  there  were  in  the 
provincial  towns  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia  is  only 
conjectured,  but  it  was  asserted  afterwards  that 
there  had  been  five  times  as  many  as  in  Prague,  so 
that  the  total  number  of  political  prisoners  in 
Bohemia  in  1868  was  about  700. 

When  the  Premier  tried  to  placate  the  Bo- 
hemian opposition  by  suspending  martial  law 
(April,  1869)  in  Prague,  the  centralists  became 
furious.      Bohemian    autonomy,    declared    their 


74  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

organ,  the  Vienna  "  Neue  Freie  Presse,"  is  an 
issue  that  only  force  can  solve;  the  unification  of 
the  Bohemian  Crown  may  be  of  vital  moment  to 
the  Bohemians,  but  the  Germans  will  never  give 
their  consent. 

FRANCIS  JOSEF,  A  WORD-BREAKER 

At  last  wiser  counsel  prevailed  in  Vienna,  and 
while  certain  members  favored  repression,  even 
force,  to  bring  the  Bohemians  to  submission,  there 
were  others.  Count  Taaffe  among  them,  who  urged 
moderation.  The  Potocki  ministry  (1870)  tried 
to  breach  the  differences  between  Prague  and 
Vienna.  More  successful  than  Potocki  was  Count 
Hohenwart,  whom  the  emperor  encouraged  to 
make  terms  with  the  Bohemians.  Hohenwart's 
first  step  was  to  name  two  distinguished  Bo- 
hemians, Jirecek  and  Habetinek,  members  of  his 
cabinet.  The  "Neue  Freie  Presse"  commented  on 
Hohenwart's  appointment  as  "  the  Sedan  of  Ger- 
man ideals  in  Austria."  Hohenwart's  next  step 
was  to  select  an  Austrian  commission,  in  co- 
operation with  a  similar  commission  of  Bohemians, 
headed  by  Count  Clam-Martinic  and  Dr.  Rieger, 
to  draft  terms  of  settlement,  which  came  to  be 
known  as  the  "  Fundamental  Articles."  These 
"  Fundamentals  "  defined  precisely  the  future  rela- 
tions of  Bohemia  and  Austria.    In  the  "  Funda- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  75 

mentals  "  one  could  clearly  discern  Palacky's  ideas 
of  federalistic  Austria, 

Thereupon  an  imperial  rescript  was  issued, 
bearing  date  September  12,  1871,  in  which  the 
emperor  made  this  memorable  promise :  "  Recog- 
nizing the  state  rights  of  the  Bohemian  Crown, 
calling  to  mind  the  renown  and  power  which  the 
crown  has  conferred  upon  Us  and  Our  prede- 
cessors, and  mindful  further  of  the  unwavering 
loyalty  with  which  the  people  of  Bohemia  have 
at  all  times  supported  Our  throne,  We  are  glad 
to  recognize  the  rights  of  this  kingdom  and  are 
ready  to  renew  this  recognition  by  Our  coronation 
oath."  * 

Obviously  it  was  not  the  mere  mediaeval  cere- 
mony of  coronation  that  Bohemians  were  anxious 
to  have  take  place.  By  having  himself  crowned  as 
king,  the  sovereign  would  affirm  by  implication 
that  the  Kingdom  of  Bohemia,  the  Margravate 

•  "  Eingedenkt  der  Staatsrechtlichen  Stellung  der  Krone  Bohraens 
und  des  Glanzes  und  der  Macht  bewusst,  welche  dieselbe  Uns  und 
Unseren  Vorfahren  verliehen  hat,  eingedenkt  ferner  der  unerschutt- 
lichen  Treue,  mit  welchen  die  Bevolkerung  Bohmens  jederzeit  Unseren 
Thron  stutzte,  erkennen  wir  gerne  die  Rechte  dieses  Konigreiches  an 
und  sind  bereit  diese  Anerkennung  mit  Unserem  Kronungseide  zu 
erneuem." 

Among  the  many  titles  of  Francis  Josef  are  those  of  "  Emperor  of 
Austria,"  "  King  of  Hungary,"  "  King  of  Bohemia,"  etc.  Strictly 
speaking,  Francis  Josef  has  no  legal  claim  to  the  title  "  King  of 
Bohemia."  He  has  never  taken  the  coronation  oath;  and,  without 
such  an  oath,  he  is  no  more  King  than  Woodrow  Wilson  would  be 
President  of  the  United  States  without  first  taking  the  oath  of  office. 
Logically,  therefore,  Francis  Josef  is  an  unlawful  ruler  of  the  Bo- 
hemian Kingdom. 


76  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

of  Moravia,  and  the  Duchy  of  Silesia  were  one 
and  indivisible;  that  Bohemia  was  a  part  of  the 
monarchy  only  as  long  as  the  Hapsburgs  survived 
in  the  male  or  female  line;  that  in  the  event  of 
the  Hapsburg-Lothringen  line  becoming  extinct, 
Bohemia  was  free  to  elect  its  own  ruler;  that  the 
power  of  legislation  was  vested  jointly  in  the 
king  and  in  the  diets  and  that  the  king,  upon 
taking  the  coronation  oath,  bound  himself  to  de- 
fend the  indissolubility  of  the  Bohemian  Crown. 

In  answer  to  the  emperor's  declaration  the  diet 
passed  in  its  sessions  of  October  8  and  lo,  1871, 
the  "  Fundamental  Articles."  Meantime  the  cen- 
tralists worked  indefatigably  to  defeat  the  settle- 
ment with  Bohemia.  Their  journals  employed 
every  means  to  prejudice  public  opinion  against  it. 
"  Austria  is  about  to  capitulate  to  the  Slavs,"  wrote 
these  journals,  "  and  Prague  will  eventually  super- 
sede Vienna  as  the  capital  of  the  empire." 

It  is  known  that  Bismarck,  fearing  that  Bo- 
hemian home  rule  might  have  a  stimulating  effect 
on  his  Poles,  and  Andrassy,  solicitous  about  the 
"  welfare "  of  his  Slovaks,  jointly  intrigued  to 
defeat  the  autonomy  which  Premier  Hohenwart 
was  ready  to  concede.  "  Hungary  will  have  noth- 
ing in  common  with  Slavic  Austria,"  declared  the 
"  Pester  Lloyd,"  speaking  for  the  Hungarian 
Government.     "  We  Hungarians  shall  do  every- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  77 

thing  in  our  power  to  frustrate  the  reconstruction. 
Call  it  selfishness,  if  you  will,  but  that  shall  be  our 
policy." 

The  victory  of  the  Prussians  over  the  French 
in  1 87 1  naturally  made  the  Austro-German  cen- 
tralists more  stubborn  than  ever,  and  Hohenwart, 
despairing  of  the  passage  in  the  parliament  of  the 
"  Fundamental  Articles,"  resigned  October  30th. 
For  the  second  time  since  1848  the  rehabilitation 
of  the  Bohemian  State  had  been  frustrated.  That 
the  emperor,  always  vacillating  and  ever  fearful  of 
the  Pan-Germans,  was  not  himself  without  blame, 
is  obvious.  In  fact,  it  is  charged  that  the  coterie 
of  archdukes  around  the  throne  welcomed  oppo- 
sition to  Bohemian  home  rule,  if  it  did  not  secretly 
foment  it. 

A  new  rescript  commanded  the  diet  to  elect 
delegates  to  the  parliament.  Refusing  to  do  this, 
the  diet  was  dissolved.  The  Auersperg-Lasser 
Ministry  which  followed  Hohenwart  was  out- 
spokenly German-centralistic  and  Bohemian  au- 
tonomists made  ready  for  another  onslaught  from 
Vienna. 

NEW  PERSECUTIONS 

For  the  second  time  the  "  opposition  tamer," 
Baron  Koller,  was  appointed  Governor  of  Bo- 
hemia.     To    Moravia    was    sent    the    notorious 


78  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Bohemiophobe,  Baron  Weber.  As  usual,  the  press 
was  the  first  to  feel  the  heel  of  these  little  despots. 
Public  prosecutors  throughout  Bohemia  and  Mo- 
ravia received  instructions  to  proceed  "  fearlessly  " 
against  opposition  journals.  Those  prosecutors 
who  replied  that  they  would  do  their  duty  strictly 
"  in  accordance  with  the  law  "  were  either  removed 
or  transferred  to  other  posts  and  replaced  by  func- 
tionaries who  were  more  mindful  of  the  needs  of 
the  government.  "  It  is  not  necessary  in  every 
instance  to  set  forth  the  reason  for  the  confisca- 
tion of  a  newspaper  article,"  the  prosecutors  were 
instructed.  "  The  prosecutors  have  a  full  power 
to  act  and  they  are  answerable  to  no  one."  Dur- 
ing the  first  year  of  the  Auersperg-Lasser  Minis- 
try the  daily  newspaper  "  Politik  "  in  Prague  was 
confiscated  83  times  by  the  conscientious  prose- 
cutor. A  number  of  societies  were  dissolved, 
though  non-political  in  character.  An  agricultural 
organization  that  had  been  founded  during  the 
reign  of  Maria  Theresa  and  had  survived  the  bitter 
days  of  Bach's  administration,  was  deprived  of 
its  charter  because  its  president,  Prince  Charles 
Schwarzenberg,  a  Bohemian  noble,  declined  to 
participate  in  the  Vienna  Exposition  unless  a  sepa- 
rate space  was  allotted  there  to  Bohemia,  as  to 
Hungary.  Every  presiding  officer  of  the  so-called 
District  Committees  in  the  provinces,  who  was 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  79 

suspected  of  being  a  Bohemian  sympathizer,  was 
summarily  removed.  Two  of  the  most  noted 
journalists,  Julius  Gregr  and  J,  St.  Skrejsovsky, 
who  had  the  courage  to  fight  the  Auersperg-Lasser 
Ministry  openly,  were  put  in  jail  for  an  alleged 
attempt  to  defraud  the  government  of  a  trifling 
tax  with  which  newspaper  advertisements  were 
assessable.  Both  languished  in  jail  for  months. 
As  an  instance  of  official  meanness,  the  case  of  the 
publisher  of  the  '*  Correspondence  Slave  "  should 
be  mentioned.  This  man  received  a  long  term  in 
prison  for  failure  to  pay  a  newspaper  tax  amount- 
ing to  less  than  half  a  florin  (20  cents). 

And  because  Bohemian  juries  almost  uniformly 
acquitted  journalists  brought  before  them  for  po- 
litical offenses,  prosecuting  attorneys  resorted  to 
the  expedient  of  a  change  of  venue  to  cities  in- 
habited by  Germans.  To  eminent  jurists  protesting 
that  a  procedure  of  this  kind  was  unconstitutional, 
the  Minister  of  Justice  replied  that  state  necessities 
justified  this  course.  On  one  occasion  a  deputation 
of  representative  citizens  of  Prague  called  on 
Baron  Koller  to  complain  of  the  arbitrariness  of 
the  police.  "  Gentlemen,  I  hope  you  do  not  wish 
me  to  be  imcivil  to  you.  I  am  exceedingly  busy, 
and  inasmuch  as  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  you,  I 
must  ask  you  to  leave  the  room  in  five  minutes.'' 
And  when  the  deputation,  incensed  over  Roller's 


80  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

brusqueness,  wished  to  explain,  the  redoubtable 
baron  exclaimed :  "  Gentlemen,  the  five  minutes 
are  up.  Leave."  A  door  was  opened,  and  in  the 
ante-room  stood  a  sentry  with  fixed  bayonet. 

The  year  1879  witnessed  the  end  of  the  "  policy 
of  abstinence."  Due,  largely,  to  Premier  TaaflFe's 
persuasion  and  promises,  Bohemians  re-entered  the 
parliament.  From  Taaffe  and  his  successors  in 
office  they  obtained  some  political  concessions 
(crumbs  fallen  from  the  opulent  table  of  the  mas- 
ter, to  repeat  a  current  expression  of  the  opposi- 
tion), yet  the  supreme  ideal  of  the  nation,  auton- 
omy, is  to-day  no  nearer  fulfillment  than  it  ever 
was.  If  they  thought  that  they  might  be  able  to 
convince  Vienna  of  the  injustice  of  dualism  and 
might  by  parliamentary  pressure  force  it  to  grant 
to  them  home  rule  of  which  they  had  been  twice 
cheated,  they  had  reckoned  wrongly.  Not  only 
did  they  fail  to  bring  Vienna  to  terms,  but  they 
were  made  to  feel  that  another  foe,  powerful  and 
implacable,  blocked  their  way  to  national  freedom. 
That  foe  was  Berlin.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that,  since  the  formation  of  the  Triple  Alliance, 
Berlin  influence  at  Vienna,  always  great,  had  be- 
come predominant.  If  the  two  Teutonic  partners 
were  agreed  on  any  one  thing,  it  was  on  the  propo- 
sition that  Slavic  trees  in  Austria  should  not  grow 
too  tall. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  81 

To  conduct  the  reader  through  the  maze  of 
purely  local  happenings  that  occurred  since  Taaffe's 
administration  would  be  a  long,  though  not  wholly 
uninteresting  story.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  during 
most  of  the  time  Bohemians  were  forced  to  fight 
on  two  fronts — Vienna  on  one  front  and  their 
fellow-countrymen  with  Pan-German  leanings  on 
the  other.  The  main  quarrel  between  Vienna 
and  Prague  during  all  these  years  has  been  over 
Home  Rule.  Shall  Bohemians  living  in  the  coun- 
tries comprising  the  Bohemian  Crown  (Bohemia, 
Moravia,  Silesia)  be  the  arbiters  of  their  own 
destiny,  and  shall  they  govern  themselves  from 
Prague  by  laws  made  and  enacted  by  their  home 
parliament  ?  Home  Rule  is  and  has  been  the  main 
issue;  all  else  is  subordinate  to  it. 

WAR  WITHOUT  SANCTION  OF  PARLIAMENT 

In  1908  the  German  minority  in  the  Bohemian 
Diet  proposed  a  plan  aiming  at  a  division  of  Bo- 
hemia into  two  administrative  parts,  German  and 
Bohemian.  This  plan  the  Bohemians  vehemently 
combated,  as  they  had  consistently  opposed  like 
schemes  in  the  past.  They  claimed  that  to  rend 
the  kingdom  into  two  halves,  Bohemian  and  Ger- 
man, was  both  impracticable  and  dangerous.  Im- 
practicable, because  it  would  condemn  to  inevitable 


SSt  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Germanization  the  very  strong  Bohemian  minori- 
ties living  in  German  districts  on  the  border. 
Dangerous,  because  there  were  good  reasons  for 
believing  that  German  Bohemia  would  gravitate 
toward  Berlin,  rather  than  toward  Prague  or 
Vienna.  Their  scheme  having  been  blocked,  the 
Germans  availed  themselves  of  obstructive  tactics 
in  the  diet,  with  the  result  that  a  deadlock  ensued. 
As  usual,  the  Vienna  Grovernment  hurried  to  the 
assistance  of  the  Germans.  Bohemian  leaders 
were  made  to  understand  that  they  must  yield  in 
the  Prague  Diet,  or  suffer  punishment  in  the  par- 
liament. However,  neither  threats  nor  promises 
moved  the  Bohemians;  they  made  it  plain  that 
they  would  not  submit  to  further  political  extor- 
tions. Unable  to  break  the  deadlock  in  Bohemia 
and  unwilling  to  abandon  the  Germans  in  their 
hopeless  struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  Teutonic 
hegemony  in  Austria,  the  Vienna  Government,  as 
a  last  desperate  means  of  saving  its  compatriots 
from  political  defeat,  suspended  what  there  was 
still  left  of  Bohemian  autonomy  on  July  26,  191 3, 
one  year  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  having 
previously  advised  the  Berlin  Government  of  its 
intention.  The  diet  was  dissolved,  although  new 
elections  had  not  been  ordered,  as  the  law  pro- 
vided, and  in  place  of  the  autonomous  Land 
Executive,  the  government  appointed  an  Imperial 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  83 

Commission  to  govern  Bohemia.     This  was  the 
beginning  of  an  absolutist  era  in  the  kingdom. 

The  echo  of  the  deadlock  in  Bohemia  was  at 
once  heard  in  parliament.  Promptly  the  Bohe- 
mians carried  the  fight  to  the  imperial  assembly, 
thus  crippling  its  functions.  And  so  it  happened 
that,  on  the  eve  of  the  Great  War,  the  highest 
legislative  tribunal  of  the  empire  did  not  meet 
and  the  nations  were  not  consulted  as  to  whether 
or  not  they  wished  war.  The  ruler  alone  decided 
this  momentous  question  by  taking  recourse  to  the 
famous  paragraph  fourteen  of  the  constitution 
which,  in  certain  cases,  allows  him  to  act  alone 
without  the  co-operation  or  advice  of  the  parlia- 
ment.* This  situation  really  suited  the  wishes  of 
the  government  clique,  which  knew  beforehand 
that  the  Slavs  would  have  resolutely  opposed  the 
war  if  given  an  opportunity.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
Bohemians  would  have  raised  their  voice  against 
the  mad  adventure  against  Serbia  and  would  have 
declared  in  no  unequivocal  language  that  a  ruler 

*  The  elusive  paragraph  fourteen  of  the  constitution  (bearing  date 
December  21,  1867)  has  been  the  cause  of  some  of  the  bitterest  fights 
in  pariiament.  It  virtually  nullifies  constitutionalism  in  Austria,  per- 
mitting as  it  does  the  emperor  and  his  ministers  to  rule  the  land  "  in 
case  of  urgent  necessities  "  without  parliament.  Past  experience  has 
shown  that  these  "  necessities  "  arise  quite  often.  Paragraph  fourteen 
is  a  bulwark  of  strength  to  the  German  party  against  which  the  Bohe- 
mians have  battled  in  vain.  Under  paragraph  fourteen  the  ruler  cannot 
change  vhe  fundamental  laws  of  the  realm,  contract  permanent  loans, 
and  alienate  public  property.  Aside  from  this  there  is  nothing  to 
curb   his  absolutism.     Parliament  may   impeach  the  ministers  for  ex- 


84  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

who  had  twice  broken  his  solemn  promise  to 
them  had  Httle  claim  on  their  loyalty. 

In  a  hundred  different  ways  the  nation  is  being 
wronged  and  held  back,  and  no  lasting  relief  is 
possible  so  long  as  the  deadening  centralistic,  anti- 
Slavic  policy  obtains,  so  long  as  the  state  recog- 
nizes master  races  and  servant  races  and  accords 
different  treatment  to  each. 

To  every  one  of  its  political  and  cultural  de- 
mands Vienna  is  ready  to  plead  reasons  of  state, 
policies  of  state,  principles  of  state,  necessities  of 
state.  If  the  grumbling  is  too  loud  the  malcontents 
are  given  to  understand:  "If  you  are  not  satisfied 
in  Austria,  you  may  have  a  chance  to  become  Prus- 
sians." 

"  Our  nation  is  in  a  grave  danger,"  said  Palacky, 
"  and  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  enemies.  Yet  I 
believe  that  it  will  conquer  in  the  end,  if  it  is 
only  determined."  And  the  Bohemian  nation  is 
determined,  determined  to  the  last  man,  to  fight 
for  its  life,  its  liberty,  and  its  happiness. 

ceeding  their  powers,  but  this  safeguard  is  really  no  safeguard  at  all. 
The   German  text  of  paragraph  fourteen  is  as  follows: 

"  Wenn  sich  die  dringende  Nothwendigkeit  solchen  Anordnungen,  zu 
welchem  verfassungsmassig  die  Zustitnmung  des  Reichsrathes  erforder- 
lich  ist,  zu  einer  Zeit  herausstellt,  wo  dieser  nicht  versammelt  ist, 
so  konnen  dieselben  unter  Verantwortung  des  Gesammtrainisteriums 
durch  Kaiserliche  Verordnung  erlassen  werden,  in  soferne  solche 
keine  Abanderung  des  Staatsgrundgesetzes  bezwecken,  keine  dauernde 
Belastung  des  Staatschatzes,  und  keine  Verauserung  von  Staatsgut 
betreffen.  Solche  Verordnungen  haben  provisorische  Gesetzkraft,  wenn 
sie  von  sammtlichen  Ministern  unterzeichnet  sind,  und  mit  ausdriick- 
licher  Beziehung  auf  diese  Bestimmung  des  Staatsgrundgesetzes 
kundgemacht  werden." 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  85 

HAPSBURGS  DISTRUSTED 
If  there  is  one  thing  deeply  rooted  in  the  minds 
of  the  Bohemian  people  it  is  the  belief,  or  rather 
the  conviction,  that  the  Hapsburgs,  beginning  with 
Ferdinand  II.  and  ending  with  Francis  Josef,  the 
present  sovereign,  one  and  all  planned  the  Ger- 
manization  of  the  nation.  Vienna  newspapers 
make  much  of  the  fact  that  Bohemia  has  advanced 
under  the  rule  of  Francis  Josef  as  under  no  other 
Hapsburg — and  they  seek  to  convey  the  impres- 
sion that  this  remarkable  renascence  should  be 
credited  to  his  reign.  If  Francis  Josef  had  had  his 
way,  Bohemians  argue,  they  would  to-day  be  like 
the  Slavs  along  the  Elbe  who  have  succumbed  to 
Germanization,  and  Prague  would  be  as  German 
as  Leipzig  or  Vienna.  Their  own  determination 
to  live  saved  them  from  extinction.  All  that  the 
nation  is  and  all  that  it  has  attained  it  has  accom- 
plished through  its  own  effort,  without  help  from 
Vienna,  often  in  the  face  of  the  bitterest  opposi- 
tion from  that  quarter.  Deny  it  as  much  as  you 
will,  the  truth  remains  that  Bohemians,  remem- 
bering their  experience  with  Ferdinand  IL,  have 
always  distrusted  the  Hapsburgs;  and  Francis 
Josef  has  done  nothing,  despite  the  splendid  oppor- 
tunities of  his  remarkably  long  reign,  to  dispel 
that  feeling  of  distrust.  For,  who  was  it  but  a 
Hapsburg  who,  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth 


86  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

century,  turned  their  fatherland  into  a  waste,  driv- 
ing into  exile  the  flower  of  the  nation  ?  Who  but 
a  Hapsburg  put  a  tombstone  on  the  sepulchre  of 
the  nation,  and  who  but  a  Hapsburg  tried  to 
smother  its  spirit  under  that  tombstone?  Who 
but  a  Hapsburg  caused  the  persecution  and  jail- 
ing of  the  revivalists  who  undertook  the  task  of 
awakening  the  nation  ?  And  who  but  a  Hapsburg 
twice  violated,  twice  broke  his  solemn  promise 
to  the  nation,  first  in  1861,  and  again  in  1871? 
Who  but  a  Hapsburg,  by  approving  of  the  dual- 
istic  system  of  government  in  1867,  intrigued  to 
barter  them  away,  with  the  rest  of  the  Slavs,  into 
political  bondage? 

LOYALTY  AND  UNITY 

Reading  the  utterances  of  Austrian  officials  in 
the  United  States  one  is  almost  persuaded  to  be- 
lieve that  the  reports  of  mutinies  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  war  and  of  disaffection  of  Slavic 
troops  were  pure  inventions  of  a  hostile  press,  that 
the  nations  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  were  en- 
thusiastic and  united  *  on  the  question  of  war  and 

*  The  register  of  prisoners  at  Kiev  shows  1 14,000  were  taken  in 
the  Carpathian  fighting  during  the  two  months  before  the  fall  of 
Przemysl,  and  some  difficulty  has  been  found  in  preventing  racial 
troubles  among  the  enormous  colony  from  captives.  German  Uhlan 
soldiers,  hearing  of  the  fall  of  Przemysl,  declared  that  it  must  have 
been  due  to  the  treachery  of  "  that  Czech  Kusmanek,"  whereupon  a 
Czech  officer  struck  him.  The  fight  spread  and  the  participants  had 
to  be  separated. — Cable  item  from  Russia. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  87 

that  stories  of  oppression  of  non-Germanic  peoples 
were  baseless,  lacking  the  foundation  of  truth.  A 
member  of  one  of  the  consular  staffs  made  a  pretty 
speech  before  the  New  York  Twilight  Club  in 
which  he  tried  to  convince  his  hearers  that  it  was 
an  old-time  policy  of  the  Austrian  Government  to 
treat  justly  and  impartially  all  its  subjects,  irre- 
spective of  race,  for  does  not  the  Ho f burg  in 
Vienna,  the  residence  of  the  emperor,  bear  the 
proud  legend,  "  Justice  to  all  nations  is  the  funda- 
ment of  Austria  "  ? 

Is  it  really  true  that  the  Austrian  troops  are 
and  were  loyal,  that  none  shot  their  officers  and 
none  surrendered  to  the  Russians  or  to  the  Serbi- 
ans when  an  opportunity  presented  ?  Do  not  these 
very  denials  of  mutiny  and  disaffection  sound  sus- 
picious? Mutiny  of  troops  is  admittedly  unknown 
in  the  German  Army,  and  none  have  been,  so  far 
as  we  know,  reported  from  the  French  or  English 
Armies.  Neither  the  Germans,  nor  the  English, 
nor  the  French  officials  in  this  country  have  felt 
the  need  to  make  public  affirmation  or  denial  where 
silence  should  have  been  most  eloquent.  If  the 
Austro-Hungarian  officials  are  so  sure  of  their 
case,  why  do  they  make  an  exception  and 
try  to  refute  what  in  the  case  of  the  other 
warring  countries  is  understood  as  a  matter  of 
course  ? 


88  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Before  we  could  give  unreserved  credence  to 
these  official  assurances,  we  should  like  to  hear 
the  other  side  of  the  story.  But,  it  so  happens  that 
the  other  side  cannot  now  be  presented.  Every 
newspaper  in  Austria,  without  an  exception  (par- 
ticularly opposition  journals  printed  in  any  of  the 
Slavic  languages),  is  edited  by  the  government. 
The  government  censor  is  editor  of  all  journals 
published  in  the  empire,  and  the  newspapers  are 
given  the  choice  either  to  print  what  the  Imperial 
Royal  Press  Bureau  sends  them  or  have  the 
articles  promptly  confiscated.  As  a  result  of  this 
complete  muzzling  of  the  press,  there  is  now  but 
one  kind  of  public  opinion  in  Austria — the  censor's 
opinion.  According  to  the  Prague  journals,  which 
reach  the  United  States,  Austrians  are  winning 
everywhere — on  land,  at  sea,  and  in  the  air. 
Police  agents  plan  fraternal  and  loyal  meetings  of 
Germans  and  Slavs,  and  the  police  agents'  faithful 
ally,  the  censor,  writes  them  up  in  the  newspapers 
and  the  Imperial  Royal  Press  Bureau  in  Vienna 
sends  broadcast  glowing  accounts  of  them.  Again, 
many  of  the  leading  men  of  the  Bohemian  nation 
are  in  jail  or  under  strict  police  surveillance  and 
cannot  speak.  Are  we  to  believe  that  all  the  Aus- 
trian races  fight  enthusiastically?  Precisely  the 
opposite  of  this  is  true.  With  the  exception  of  a 
fraction  of  the  Galician  Poles,  the  Slavs  were  en- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  89 

tirely  opposed  to  the  war  with  Serbia.*  Unfortu- 
nately they  have  no  voice  in  the  foreign  policy  of 
the  monarchy;  if  their  warnings  and  pleadings,  as 
reflexed  in  their  press,  had  been  heeded,  war 
against  Serbia  would  never  have  been  undertaken. 
Slavs  are  battling  under  the  Austro-Hungarian 
standards  because  they  cannot  help  themselves. 
Yet  their  hearts  are  not  in  the  fight.  Even  the 
dullest  and  least  informed  mind  will  guess,  not- 


*  The  Slavs  in  Austria-Hungary  are  divided  into  the  following  racial 
groups: 

1.  The  Bohemians.  Inhabit  Bohemia,  Moravia,  and  Silesia.  Strong 
settlements  are  found  in  Austria  (the  city  of  Vienna  alone  being  the 
home  of  not  less  than  300,000,  according  to  some  estimates  500,- 
000)   and  in   Prussian   Silesia. 

2.  The  Slovaks.  Settled  in  the  northwestern  part  of  Hungary  and 
in  Moravia. 

Professor  Labor  Niederle,  who  is  recognized  as  an  authority  on 
Slavic  matters,  computed  in  1900  the  strength  of  the  Bohemians,  to- 
gether with  the  Slovaks,  at  9,800,000. 

3.  The  Poles.  Scattered  over  the  whole  of  Galicia,  intermixing 
there  with  the  Ruthenes,  but  predominating  mainly  in  the  westerly 
part  of  it.  They  also  live  in  Silesia,  with  settlements  in  Bukovina 
and  Moravia.  Austrian  Poles  number  almost  5,000,000.  All  told, 
the  Polish  race  in  Austria,  Germany,  and  Russia  is  computed  by 
Niederle  (1900)  at  17,500,000;  Polish  statisticians  make  the  total 
20,000,000.  When  the  constitutional  era  first  dawned  in  Austria,  the 
Poles  were  put  in  full  charge  of  Galicia,  in  appreciation  of  which 
concession  they  have  always  loyally  supported  the  Austrian  Govern- 
ment In  Galicia,  the  Poles  are  the  aristocracy  and  the  Ruthenes  the 
peasant  element.  The  affection  of  Vienna  for  the  Poles,  however,  is 
not  above  suspicion;  it  is  claimed  that  hatred  of  Russia,  common  to 
both  the  Poles  and  the  Austrians,  was  more  directly  responsible  for 
the  alliance  than  any  other  single  cause,  though  of  course  it  is  unde- 
niable that  under  Austrian  rule  the  Poles  fared  better  than  either 
under  the  Russian  or  Prussian  regimes. 

4.  The  Slovenes.  Occupy  the  whole  of  Carniola,  the  southern 
part  of  Styria,  the  major  section  of  Goritz  and  Gradiska,  except  a 
section  in  the  southwestern  part  thereof,  the  outlying  villages  of  Trieste, 
the  northern  end  of  Istria,  which  projects  on  the  west  into  Italian  ter- 


90  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

withstanding  the  honeyed  assurances  of  consular 
officials,  the  way  their  sympathies  incline.  It 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  is  a  war  of  Slavs 
against  Slavs,  of  Slavic  Russia  and  Slavic  Serbia 
against  two-fifths  Slavic  Austria.  Let  us  place 
ourselves  in  the  position  of  the  Bohemians.  For 
decades  they  have  worked  for  solidarity  among  the 
Slavs,  so  much  so  that  their  endeavors  in  this 
direction  have  earned  for  them  the  title  of  the 


ritory  and  eastward  into  Hungary.     Niedcrle's  estimate  of  the  Slovenes 
in  1900  was  1,500,000. 

5.  No  Slavic  race  is  more  torn  up  territorially  than  the  Serbo- 
Croatians.  Although  really  one  people  by  language  and  origin,  they 
have  divided  themselves,  or  rather  were  subdivided  by  their  political 
masters,  into  two  national  units.  Their  homelands  include  a  large 
section  of  Istria  and  Dalmatia,  together  with  the  adjacent  islands  in 
the  Adriatic,  the  whole  of  Croatia  and  Slavonia,  a  piece  of  southern 
Hungary,  and  all  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  Besides  this,  there  is.  of 
course,  the  Serbian  Kingdom  and  Montenegro. 

Niederle  estimated   the   Serbo-Croatians  in    1900   at  8,550,000. 

6.  The  Ruthenes  (Little  Russians).  Overflow  the  Russian  bounda- 
ries to  Galicia,  being  predominant  in  east  Galicia,  strong  in  western 
and  northern  Bukovina,  numerous  in  several  counties  in  Hungary. 

Niederle  computed  the  strength  of  the  Ruthenes  in  Galicia,  Htin- 
gary,  and  Bukovina  in  1900  at  3,500,000. 

By  religious  affiliations  the  Slavs  are  divided  as  follows:  To  the  Catholic 
group  belong  almost  wholly  the  Bohemians,  Poles,  Slovenes,  Croatians, 
and  Slovaks  (of  the  last  named  about  seven-tenths).  Protestantism  finds 
favor  among  the  Slovaks  (24  per  cent.),  Bohemians  (2.44  per  cent.), 
and  Poles  living  in  Silesia  (1.81  per  cent.).  The  Orthodox  faith 
is  professed  by  the  Ruthenes  in  Galicia,  Hungary,  and  Bukovina,  and 
the  Serbians.  A  fraction  of  the  Russians  in  Galicia  and  Hungary 
adheres  to  the  Uniate  Church,  and  there  are  believers  in  Mohamme- 
danism in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. 

The  old-fashioned  Austrian  diplomacy  knew  well  the  value  of  the 
principle  "  divide  and  rule  "  and  tried  it  on  its  Slavs  with  success. 
There  was  a  time  when  Bohemians  in  Moravia  were  taught  by  Aus- 
trian officials  to  believe  that  they  were  Moravians,  not  Bohemians. 
The  difference  between  Bohemian  and  Moravian  is  as  great  as  the 
difference  between  Bronx  English  and  Brooklyn  English,  yet  this  fact 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  91 

Apostles  of  Pan-Slavism.  Is  it  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  they  would  suddenly  turn  traitors  to 
one  of  the  most  cherished  traditions  of  their  race 
and  shout  enthusiastically  for  a  war  which,  if 
successful  for  the  two  Kaisers,  would  mean 
their  certain  obliteration?  If  Germany  should 
win,  the  eventual  absorption  by  her  of  Austria 
would  be  probable,  if  not  inevitable.  The  Pan- 
German  sentiment  in  the  two  neighboring  em- 
pires would  become  so  overwhelmingly  strong 
that  nothing  would  stay  its  furor  and  the  millions 
of  Austrian  Slavs  would  find  themselves  face  to 
face  with  their  doom.    Plainly,  Slavs  have  nothing 


did  not  discourage  the  grammarians  in  Vienna  from  setting  up 
boundaries  where  none  existed.  Croatia,  as  pointed  out  elsewhere, 
is  peopled  by  a  nation  calling  itself  alternately  Croatians  and  Serbs. 
Possessing  a  common  past,  the  same  racial  traditions,  and  speaking 
one  language,  the  Serbo-Croatians  are  clearly  one  nation,  divided  only 
by  different  faiths.  The  Croatians  use  the  Latin  letters  and  adhere, 
almost  to  a  man,  to  the  Catholic  faith,  while  the  Serbs  employ  the 
Cyrillic  alphabet  and  belong  to  the  Orthodox  Church.  The  busy  gram- 
marians in  Vienna  and  in  Budapest  did  their  utmost  to  keep  the  Serbo- 
Croatians  apart,  and  even  incited  one  against  the  other,  by  instilling 
the  belief  in  them  that  two  different  religions  really  meant  two  differ- 
ent races.  Galicia  is  inhabited  by  two  distinct  peoples,  the  Russians 
and  the  Poles.  The  name  "  Russian  "  sounded  badly  in  Austria.  It 
constantly  reminded  the  Galician  Russians  that  on  the  other  side  of 
the  yellow-black  boundary  posts  lived  a  great  nation  that  spoke  the 
same  language  and  professed  the  same  faith  as  they.  Again  the 
learned  grammarians  in  Vienna  went  to  work  and  by  dint  of  hard 
study  discovered  that  Austrian  Russians  were  really  not  what  they 
seemed  to  be  and  promptly  they  baptized  them  "  Ruthenes."  The 
ruse,  of  course,  was  to  veil  the  nearness  of  the  relationship  of  the 
"  Ruthenes  "  to  the  Russians  in  Russia  proper.  In  the  same  manner 
and  with  the  same  object  in  view  the  Slovaks  of  Hungary  are  en- 
couraged to  believe  that  they  are  a  separate  race  and  not  near  rela- 
tives of  the  Bohemians. 


9!t  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

to  gain  from  the  defeat  of  the  Allies,  but  every- 
thing to  lose  from  the  victory  of  the  Hapsburgs 
and  the  Hohenzollerns,  They  feel  that  nothing 
short  of  a  decisive  defeat  of  Austria  will  liberate 
them  from  the  thraldom  of  German-Magyar  domi- 
nation. If  Austria  collapses  in  this  war  the  Bo- 
hemians will  be  among  the  first  to  profit  thereby.* 
Is  it  really  true  that  the  Slavs  are  loyal?  Is  it 
not  rather  a  loyalty  wrung  from  them  at  the  point 
of  the  bayonet?  Besides,  how  can  they  protest 
against  a  war  which  was  neither  of  their  choosing 
nor  of  their  making,  when  the  military  rule  has 
made  protests  impossible  ?  One  must  respect  and 
even  admire  the  French  and  the  Germans  when 
they  declare  that  they  are  fighting  for  the  exist- 
ence of  the  fatherland.     What  are  the  Austrian 


•  For  a  student  of  Austrian  conditions  it  is  instructive  to  note 
how  the  war  of  the  Balkan  Allies  against  the  Turk  divided  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  people  along  racial  lines.  Save  a  fraction  of  the  Poles 
in  Galicia,  the  Slavs  sided  heartily  and  enthusiastically  with  the 
Allies.  The  Germans  and  the  Magyars  wished  for  the  success  of  the 
Turks.  When  the  Bulgars  routed  the  Ottoman  army  at  Kirk  Killise, 
the  Vienna  press  ill-concealed  its  chagrin,  while  Slavic  journals  re- 
joiced as  if  it  had  been  their  own  victory.  Imagine  the  dismay  of 
such  a  staunch  champion  of  Austrian  public  opinion  as  the  Vienna 
"  Neue  Freie  Presse,"  when  the  Serbs  crushed  the  Turk  at  Kumanovo! 
For  many  reasons  Serbia  was  for  years  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of 
barometer  of  the  hopes  of  the  Austrian  Slavs.  A  clever  Bohemian 
journalist  made  the  interesting  prediction  some  time  before  the  Balkan 
War  that  relief  from  Austrian  thraldom  may  be  looked  for,  not  from 
Russia,  as  many  dreamers  believed,  but  from  the  small  Slavic  states 
in  the  Balkans.  If  these  were  victorious,  prophesied  this  newspaper 
writer,  the  Slavs  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  were  sure  to  gain  mor- 
ally from  the  victory.  Official  public  opinion  frowned  on  the  war 
relief  work  among  Austrian  Slavs  in  aid  of  the  Balkan  Allies. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  9S 

Slavs  fighting  for?  To  them,  or  rather  to  the 
majority  of  them,  Austrian  fatherland  conveys 
but  an  abstraction,  for  correctly  speaking,  Austria 
is  a  government  and  not  a  fatherland  in  the  sense 
that  a  German  or  a  Frenchman  regards  the  country 
of  his  birth.  Austria  may  possibly  be  a  father- 
land to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Archduchies  of 
Lower  and  Upper  Austria,  but  not  to  a  Bohemian,  a 
Magyar,  or  a  Pole — certainly  no  more  than  England 
is  the  fatherland  of  an  Irishman.  By  allegiance 
a  Bohemian  is  an  Austrian  subject,  ethnically 
he  belongs  to  the  country  of  his  birth — Bohemia. 
While  the  national  anthem  "Kde  domov  muj  " 
(Where  is  my  Home?)  stirs  deeply  the  emotions 
of  a  Bohemian,  the  singing  of  the  Austrian  hymn 
"  Gott  erhalte  "  leaves  him  cold  and  indifferent. 

VIENNA,  THE  CAPITAL 

Vienna  loves  to  pose  as  the  beacon-light  of  the 
empire  somewhat  as  Paris,  the  recognized  centre  of 
everything  French,  or  Berlin,  the  pivotal  city  of 
Germany.  Yet  Vienna  forgets  that  it  lacks  all  of 
the  historical,  geographical,  economic  essentials 
of  Paris  and,  for  that  matter,  of  Berlin.  What 
is  Vienna  ?  The  residence  of  the  sovereign  and  the 
seat  of  the  government  and  the  capital — not  of  the 
empire,  mind  you,  but  of  the  Archduchy  of  Lower 
Austria.    The  capital  of  Hungary  is  Budapest;  the 


94  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

centre  of  attraction  of  the  Poles  is  Cracow;  the 
heart  of  the  Bohemians  is  Prague.  What  has  been 
the  attitude  of  Vienna  toward  the  non-German  peo- 
ples and  their  national  needs?  The  good-natured 
Viennese  has  for  decades  seen  the  Slavs  caricatured 
on  the  stage,  or  in  the  humorous  journals,  as  hope- 
less simpletons,  while  the  Bohemian  Wenzel  was 
chosen  by  common  consent  as  the  quintessence  of 
stupidity. 

Several  years  ago  a  Bohemian  Bank  purchased 
palatial  quarters  on  a  leading  thoroughfare,  but 
it  had  to  cover  with  cloth  a  Bohemian  sign  on  the 
building  until  the  municipality  gave  its  consent 
thereto.  A  few  years  ago  a  company  of  actors, 
attached  to  the  National  Theatre  at  Prague,  ar- 
ranged to  give  in  Vienna  representative  plays. 
Anti-Bohemian  demonstrations,  ending  in  riots, 
were  the  result. 

Vienna,  the  capital  of  an  empire  that  is  inhabited 
by  a  dozen  different  races,  and  which  counts  among 
its  inhabitants  upward  of  300,000  Bohemians,  ob- 
jected to  a  business  sign  in  Bohemian,  because  it 
might  mar  the  beauty  of  its  looks  as  a  German  city ! 
A  few  years  ago  the  municipality  ordered  the  clos- 
ing of  the  Komensky  Bohemian  elementary  school, 
ostensibly  because  it  failed  to  comply  with  build- 
ing and  health  ordinances.  The  real  reason,  how- 
ever, was  known  to  be  political  and  racial  antip- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  95 

athy.  Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  the  sentiment 
"  Away  from  Vienna "  is  strong  and  that  it 
grows  stronger  every  year  among  non-Germans? 
"  Vienna  has  always  been  to  us,"  remarked  a  noted 
Bohemian  writer,  "  a  cruel,  unforgiving  step- 
mother." 

THE  PROBLEM 

On  the  surface  the  Austrian  problem  appears 
to  be  quite  complicated,  yet  with  the  assistance  of 
a  few  facts  and  figures  much  that  is  puzzling  to 
casual  observers  becomes  intelligible,  if  not  per- 
fectly clear. 

Like  most  industrial  countries,  Austria  is 
plagued  with  issues  which  follow  in  the  wake  of 
modernism — whatever  that  term  may  imply. 
Modernism  there  pounds  with  ever-increasing  vio- 
lence at  the  doors  of  the  palaces  of  the  opulent 
captains  of  industry.  The  small  farmer  is  land- 
hungry.  Industrialism  has  everywhere  created 
new  sources  of  wealth,  yet  with  every  factory 
erected  or  a  mine  opened  the  socialists  have  added 
so  much  to  their  disaffected  ranks.  A  bitter  war 
is  being  waged  in  certain  sections  of  the  monarchy 
between  the  clericals  and  the  modernists,  for  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  Austria  is  still  a  faith- 
ful daughter  of  Rome.  If  there  are  those  who 
favor  the  "  Los  von  Rom  " — "  Away  from  Rome  " 


96  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

— movement,  there  are  others  who  firmly  believe 
that  a  steadfast  loyalty  to  a  faith  different  from 
that  professed  by  the  Prussian  neighbor,  really  con- 
stitutes one  of  the  most  effective  barriers  against 
the  ever-threatening  absorption  of  Austria  by 
Prussia. 

Most  important  of  all  the  problems,  however, 
which  confront  Austria  is  that  of  nationalism. 
Nationalism  was  unknown  to  Austria  in  the  days 
of  Napoleon.  Prior  to  1848  Hapsburgs  knew  and 
recognized  Austrian-Germans  only.  After  that 
revolutionary  year  they  were  compelled  to  take 
notice,  unwillingly  enough,  we  may  be  sure,  of 
other  races.  Bohemians,  Magyars,  Croatians,  and 
others  forced  themselves  to  the  front ;  and,  resent- 
ing the  broad  and  ethnically  meaningless  term 
"  Austrian,"  demanded  to  be  called  by  their  proper 
racial  names. 

The  voice  th^t  extolled  racial  patriotism  had 
first  been  heard  across  the  Austrian  frontier  from 
Frankfort,  Germany,  in  1848,  when  a  parliament 
that  had  been  summoned  to  that  city  called  on 
Germans  to  unite.  Promptly  the  Slavs  took  up  the 
idea  of  unity  and  as  a  retaliatory  measure  sum- 
moned a  Pan-Slavic  Congress  to  meet  in  Prague. 
It  was  on  the  occasion  of  the  Prague  Congress 
that  Francis  Palacky  addressed  his  famous  let- 
ter to  the  Frank fortists,  explaining  why  the  Bohe- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  97 

mians  and  other  Slavs  were  opposed  to  the  in- 
corporation of  Austria  in  the  future  Germany. 
"  The  aim  which  you  propose  to  yourselves,"  wrote 
Palacky,  among  other  things,  to  Frankfort,  "  is 
the  substitution  of  a  federation  of  peoples  for  the 
old  federation  of  princes,  to  unite  the  German 
nation  in  a  real  union,  to  strengthen  the  sentiment 
of  German  nationality,  to  secure  the  greatness  of 
Germans  without  and  within.  I  honor  your  resolve 
and  the  motives  by  which  you  are  impelled,  but  at 
the  same  time  I  cannot  share  in  your  work.  I  am 
not  a  German,  or  at  least  I  do  not  feel  as  if  I  were 
one.  Assuredly  you  cannot  wish  that  I  should 
join  you  merely  as  a  supernumerary  with  neither 
opinion  nor  will  of  my  own.  I  am  a  Bohemian  of 
Slavic  origin,  and  all  I  possess  and  command  I 
place  wholly  and  forever  at  the  service  of  my 
own  country.  It  is  true  that  my  nation  is 
small,  but  from  the  very  beginning  it  has  possessed 
its  own  historical  individuality.  Its  princes  on 
occasions  have  acted  in  common  with  German 
princes,  but  the  people  have  never  regarded  them- 
selves as  Germans,  nor  have  others,  during  all 
these  centuries,  included  them  amongst  them." 

It,  therefore,  sounds  very  much  like  irony  to 
hear  Germans  from  the  Fatherland  censuring  the 
Austrian  Government  for  allowing  the  national 
movement  among  its  Slavs  to  spread  as  it  did. 


98  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

What  the  Austrian  nations  really  did  was  to  follow 
the  advice  of  their  Germanic  tutors  and  awaken 
racially. 

The  population  of  Austria  in  1910  was  28,571,- 
934.  Of  this  number  the  Slavs  constituted  60.65 
percentage,  the  Germans  35.58.  It  is  in  these 
figures  that  we  must  seek — and  will  find — the  real 
problem  of  the  country.  "  Austria,"  once  declared 
a  noted  statesman  in  the  Austrian  Parliament, 
"  should  be  a  German  state  in  language  and  edu- 
cation. German  should  be  spoken  by  all  persons 
and  serve  as  a  political  bond  to  all  races  and  na- 
tionalities. All  the  citizens,  whatever  may  be  their 
mother  tongue,  Bohemians,  Slovaks,  Poles,  Ru- 
thenes,  Slovenes,  Rumuns,  and  Italians,  should 
submit  to  the  baptism  of  the  German  school,  if 
they  desire  to  participate  in  the  public  affairs  of 
the  state."  Someone  answering  von  Kaiser f eld, 
for  that  was  the  name  of  the  distinguished  states- 
man, "  You  desire  to  Germanize  the  empire ;  you 
are  not  Austrians,  you  are  Germans,"  von  Kaiser- 
feld  replied  angrily,  "  There  are  no  Austrians  in 
Austria,  only  Germans."  Von  Kaiserfeld  was  not 
the  only  statesman  who  believed  that  Austria 
should  be  a  German  state.  That  is  the  obsession 
practically  of  every  German  in  the  country,  from 
the  emperor  down  to  the  meanest  postman.  Yet 
Austria  is  to-day  further  from  the  re^ization  of 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  99 

this  dream  than  it  ever  was.  The  feeUng  of 
nationalism  has  grown  too  strong  among  the  non- 
Germans  to  be  suppressed.  And  this  nationalism 
demands  that  people  shall  be  allowed  to  live  their 
individual  lives,  to  cultivate  their  language  and 
racial  ideals,  and  to  pursue  both  without  the  in- 
terference of  any  other  people. 

Much  of  the  difficulty  in  the  past  has  been  di- 
rectly due  to  the  fact  that  the  35  per  cent,  not  only 
thought  and  acted  for  themselves,  but  they  also 
insisted  on  doing  the  thinking  for  the  60  per  cent., 
regardless  of  the  latter's  feelings.  The  result  was 
jealousy,  discord,  opposition.  Even  the  Great  War 
which  has  caused  Austria  to  rock  like  a  rudderless 
ship,  was  engineered  and  premeditated  by  the  35 
per  cent.,  in  face  of  the  bitter,  though  of  course 
futile,  opposition  of  the  60  per  cent.  As  a  result, 
there  is  only  30  per  cent,  of  enthusiasm  and  effi- 
ciency; and  in  juxtaposition,  60  per  cent,  in  dis- 
aster, defeats,  and  discouragements. 

The  Hapsburgs  have  never  learned,  it  seems, 
how  to  rule  their  many  nationalities  successfully. 
There  are  two  races  in  Canada,  the  English  and 
the  French.  If  the  Canadian  Government  had 
treated  its  citizens  of  French  origin  in  the  same 
rough-shod  manner  as  Vienna  has  treated  the  Bo- 
hemians, or  Budapest  the  Slovaks,  Serbs,  or 
Rumuns,  she  would  have  made  rebels  of  every  one 


100         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

of  them,  instead  of  loyal  citizens.  The  Swiss 
Republic  is  the  home  of  three  races,  French,  Ger- 
man, and  Italian,  and  yet  we  hear  of  no  racial 
friction  among  them.  And  when  and  where  did 
the  national,  state,  or  city  government  in  the  United 
States  interfere  when  this  or  that  people  of  for- 
eign origin  desired  to  build  a  school  or  establish  a 
clubhouse  ? 

Years  ago  T.  G.  Masaryk,  a  prominent  Bohe- 
mian deputy,  delivered  a  scathing  denunciation 
in  parliament,  in  which  he  took  the  government 
to  task  for  its  anti-Slavic  policy.  "  Extirpate, 
Germanize,  that  is  and  has  been  the  favorite  policy 
of  the  government  for  decades,"  said  Masaryk. 
"  Extirpate  whom?  The  Slavs,  of  course,  and  first 
among  them  the  Bohemians.  A  nation  as  vigorous 
and  virile  as  our  Bohemian  nation  is  bound,  if 
persecuted,  to  seek  and  find  new  outlets  for  its 
surplus  energy.  And  if,  while  this  process  is 
going  on,  we  succeed  in  reclaiming  some  of  the 
ground  that  had  been  wrested  from  our  fore- 
fathers, it  is  but  a  law  of  compensation  and  the 
Germans  should  not  claim  that  we  are  encroaching 
on  their  domain,  which  they  claim  belongs  to  them. 
We  shall  never  rest  content  if  we  are  only  tolerated 
in  Austria ;  we  demand  the  right  to  be  treated  as 
equals  with  the  rest  of  the  citizens  of  the  state 
^nd  we  insist  on  being  permitted  to  work  out  our 


A  PLACE  IN  teE  SUN- .::::/ jlDt, 

destiny  as  Bohemians  without  restrictions  or  limi- 
tations. We  entertain  no  hatred  toward  the 
Germans.  We  are  distrustful,  not  so  much  of  Ger- 
many, as  of  Prussia.  Recently  a  speaker  in  this 
parliament  has  declared  that  the  Germans  were 
not  antagonistic  to  the  Slavs,  and  that,  therefore, 
they  could  not  be  hostile  to  the  Bohemians.  This, 
I  regret  to  say,  is  untrue.  It  is  a  matter  of  com- 
mon knowledge  that  not  only  they,  but  the  govern- 
ment as  well,  are  in  opposition  to  us.  I  shall  not 
repeat  what  Mr.  Dumreicher  has  lately  said  about 
the  Germanization  of  the  Slovenes  and  of  the  Bo- 
hemians ;  permit  me  to  allude  to  a  pamphlet  which 
came  out  some  time  ago  and  which  is  causing  a 
great  deal  of  comment,  *  On  the  right  and  the  duty 
of  the  Germanization  of  the  Bohemians  and  the 
Slovenes,'  by  Mathias  Ratkovsky.  Yes,  gentlemen, 
it  will  be  a  sin  if  the  Bohemians  and  Slovenes  are 
not  Germanized,  is  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Ratkovsky  of 
the  Vienna  Theresianum.  The  government  should 
use  force  to  attain  this  object,  if  necessary.  Equal- 
ity of  languages,  what  nonsense,  argues  Mr.  Rat- 
kovsky !  The  government  owes  it  to  the  people  to 
make  Bohemia  German.  Extirpate!  Remember, 
gentlemen,  Ratkovsky  is  not  an  isolated  case;  this 
agitation  is  being  conducted  systematically  both  in 
Austria  and  in  Germany.  F.  Loher,  a  Bavarian 
historian,    who    studied    conditions    in    Austria- 


10«         BOHEMMNS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Hungary  in  the  seventies,  declared  that  there  was 
only  one  conclusion  possible :  to  make  Germans  of 
Bohemians  and  Magyars.  This  same  idea  was 
advanced  by  Professor  Walcker  of  the  University 
of  Leipzig.  Yet,  gentlemen,  I  should  not  attribute 
so  great  a  weight  to  the  opinions  here  cited  were 
it  not  for  the  circumstance  that  bigger  men  in  Ger- 
many were  behind  this  scheme.  One  can  often 
hear  mentioned  the  name  of  Lagarde  in  this  con- 
nection and  you,  gentlemen  of  the  German  na- 
tional party,  know  Lagarde's  name  full  well. 
What  has  this  great  thinker  taught  the  German 
youth  for  decades  ?  *  Austria  must  be  regarded  in 
the  light  of  a  colony  of  Germany.  Apart  from  this 
Austria  has  no  claim  to  a  separate  existence.  Aus- 
tria is  confronted  with  one  task  only  and  that 
task  is  to  Germanize  all  its  Slavs.'  To  the  South 
Slavs  Lagarde  gave  pardon.  All  the  other  people 
of  the  Danube  Monarchy,  including  the  Magyars, 
were  obstacles  in  Germany's  way  and  the  sooner 
they  were  extirpated  the  better  for  Germany,  the 
better  for  themselves.  Slavs,  according  to  La- 
garde, resembled  a  commercial  enterprise  which 
was  working  with  an  insufficient  capital.  And  just 
as  there  could  be  no  Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz-Loben- 
stein  policy,  so  there  could  not  exist  a  state  called 
Wenzelland  (an  opprobrious  term  given  to  Bohemia 
by  Germans  and  meaning  much  the  same  as  Pat- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  103 

rickland  as  applied  to  Ireland).  Istria,  contended 
Lagarde,  should  be  German  to  form  an  outlet  for 
German  commerce  to  the  Adriatic  Sea  and  to  the 
African  coast,  Jablunkov  (a  town  in  Austrian 
Silesia  situated  on  a  direct  route  to  Hungary) 
should  hear  nothing  but  German,  and  from  there 
let  the  wave  roll  southwardly,  submerging  the 
wretched  little  states  and  people  that  now  bar  the 
way  thither.  'No  empire,  save  Germany,  is  capable 
of  upholding  peace  in  Central  Europe,  a  Germany, 
which  should  reach  out  from  the  Ems  to  the  delta 
of  the  Danube,  from  Memel  to  Trieste,  from 
Metz  to  the  river  Bug.  Only  such  a  Germany 
could  be  self-sustaining,  only  such  a  Germany, 
with  its  huge  standing  army,  would  be  powerful 
enough  to  defeat  both  France  and  Russia.  Bo- 
hemians and  all  the  other  small  races  must  not  be 
coddled  by  us.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  our 
enemies,  and  we  should  deal  with  them  as  such. 
Austria  cannot  be  preserved  except  as  a  Germanic 
Empire.'  Gentlemen,  note  what  is  going  on  in 
Germany  at  the  present  time  and  you  cannot  but 
see  that  this  plan  to  unite  Austria  with  Germany, 
to  Germanize  Austria,,  has  become  a  recognized 
policy  in  both  of  these  monarchies.  I  am  not  quot- 
ing from  newspaper  clippings.  I  could  refer  you 
to  the  books  of  several  prominent  writers  in  sup- 
port of  this  contention.    Can  you  blame  us  then 


104  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

that  we  are  on  guard  and  that  we  watch  with 
jealous  look  what  is  going  on  both  in  Germany 
and  among  our  Austrian  Germans?  Do  not  tell 
us  that  we  should  not  take  seriously  theories  of 
professors  lecturing  at  Gottingen,  Munich,  and  so 
forth.  No,  these  theories  so-called  are  assuming 
practical  forms.  Behold,  for  instance,  the  teach- 
ing of  a  philosopher  like  Edward  Hartmann.  A 
few  years  ago  this  noted  scholar  defined  the  pro- 
gram of  Germany  very  clearly:  Ausrotten!  (ex- 
tirpate). Ausrotten  whom?  The  Poles,  of 
course,  and  with  them  all  those  who  are  not  of 
German  blood.  You  cannot  convince  us  that  this 
is  a  theory  advanced  by  professorial  dreamers 
only;  no,  it  is  a  theory  which  the  chancellor  of 
iron  and  blood  (Bismarck)  put  to  practice  with 
the  backing  and  money  of  the  Prussian  Govern- 
ment in  the  case  of  the  Poles  in  Posen.  I  allude 
to  this  not  as  an  isolated  case,  but  as  part  of  a 
well-recognized  system  that  is  at  work  through- 
out our  monarchy  and  that  not  alone  threatens  to 
undermine  its  very  existence  as  a  state,  but  which 
aims  a  death-blow  at  our  nation,  just  as  it  menaces 
the  life  of  the  Poles,  of  the  Slovenes,  and  of  all 
the  Slavs." 

The  constitution  of  1867  proclaimed  the  equality 
of  languages  in  schools,  courts,  and  in  administra- 
tion of  public  affairs.    However,  the  operation  of 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  105 

this  constitutional  guarantee  is  unique  and  its  in- 
terpretation a  legal  puzzle.  For  example,  in 
Carinthia  there  are  30,000  Germans  and  500,000 
Slovenes;  the  latter  are  autochthons,  yet  the  Ger- 
mans there  demand  equality  but  they  vehemently 
deny  equality  to  the  Slovene  minority  in  Styria. 
In  the  same  breath,  they  insist  that  German  schools 
be  maintained  in  Italian  Tyrol,  while  they  urge 
the  authorities  to  close  Italian  schools  in  northern 
Tyrol.  In  Prague  the  courts  try  cases  in  either 
Bohemian  or  German,  but  should  a  Bohemian  come 
into  contact  with  the  courts  in  Vienna,  the  capital 
of  the  empire,  the  law  forgets  equality  and  treats 
him  there  as  a  foreigner  who  must  plead  his  case  in 
German  only.  In  Prague  there  are  numerous  and 
palatial  German  schools  maintained  by  the  state 
or  the  municipality,  as  the  case  may  be;  but  in 
Vienna  Bohemians,  though  numbering  not  less 
than  300,000  (in  Prague  Germans  are  17,000 
strong),  have  not  one  public  school  and  the  school 
authorities  at  the  capital  have  fought  for  years  in 
the  courts  every  attempt  of  the  Bohemians  in  that 
direction.  A  very  striking  illustration  of  the  chaos 
in  this  respect  is  found  in  Bohemia.  There,  in  the 
so-called  German-Bohemia,  Germans  insist  that 
their  language  shall  be  paramount  and  exclusive  in 
the  judiciary,  schools,  and  administration.  Hav- 
ing long  enjoyed  ascendency  they  will  not  content 


106         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

themselves  with  equality;  yet  in  the  rest  of  the 
country,  in  the  mixed  and  in  the  pure  Bohemian 
districts,  they  demand  that  both  tongues  shall  have 
equal  rights.  By  stamping  their  tongues  as 
"  minderwertig,"  inferior,  the  government  pro- 
vokes to  opposition  the  non-German  element. 

Observe  how  the  idea  of  equality  works  out  in 
practice  the  matter  of  the  distribution  of  schools. 
For  9,950,266  Germans  Austria  maintains  5  uni- 
versities (at  Vienna,  Prague,  Graz,  Innsbruck, 
Czernovitz),  and  for  6,435,983  Bohemians  one 
university  at  Prague.  And  this  one  university  the 
Bohemians  were  able  to  get  in  1882  only  after  a 
great  deal  of  political  haggling  and  bargaining. 
Opponents  of  the  Bohemian  seat  of  learning  pre- 
dicted that  it  would  soon  fail  for  lack  of  profes- 
sors and  of  students.  Yet,  contrary  to  their  ex- 
pectation, when  the  Prague  school  was  divided  in 
1882  into  two  parts,  Bohemian  and  German,  1,055 
students  matriculated  the  first  year  in  the  Bohe- 
main  section  as  against  1,695  Germans.  Eventu- 
ally the  Bohemian  university — by  the  way,  one  of 
the  oldest  universities  in  Central  Europe,  having 
been  founded  by  Emperor  Charles  IV.  in  1348 — 
far  outstripped  its  old  partner  in  point  of  attend- 
ance. At  present  the  number  of  students  in  the 
Bohemian  faculties  is  4,713;  in  the  German  2,282. 
Of  late  years  a  demand  has  been  made  for  a  sec- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  107 

ond  university  to  be  located  at  Brno  (Briinn),  the 
capital  of  Moravia.  The  University  of  Prague  is 
scandalously  overcrowded  and  students  from  the 
sister  state  of  Moravia  are  compelled,  in  conse- 
quence, to  go  to  Vienna  in  search  of  education, 
where,  under  Teutonic  influences,  many  are 
estranged  from  their  nation.  Numerous  petitions 
have  been  addressed  to  the  government  on  the 
subject  of  a  second  university,  but  to  no  purpose. 
In  the  matter  of  secondary  schools  (gymnasia  and 
real  schools)  the  discrimination  against  non-Ger- 
mans is  very  striking.  For  4,241,918  Bohemians 
in  Bohemia  the  government  maintains  39  schools 
of  this  type  for  secondary  education,  and  they  are 
unable  to  get  more,  while  2,467,724  Germans 
boast  34  of  these  schools.  In  Moravia  the  dis- 
proportion is  still  greater  and  in  Silesia  it  is 
relatively  worse  than  in  Moravia.  The  condition 
of  the  Bohemian  elementary  schools  in  the  mixed 
districts  near  the  border  is  most  deplorable.  It 
was  the  blind  and  unreasoning  hostility  of  the  au- 
thorities in  the  German-Bohemian  districts  against 
Bohemian  schools  which  led  the  patriots,  in  1880, 
to  found  a  school  society  called  the  tJTstfedni 
Matice  Skolska.  This  vernacular  school  society 
had  spent,  up  to  191 2,  a  total  of  more  than 
$3,000,000  in  the  establishment  and  support  of 
such  schools  in  districts  inhabited  by  both  races. 


108         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Every  cent  of  this  money  has  been  donated  by  the 
Bohemian  people  in  order  to  give  their  children  an 
education  in  the  mother  tongue. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  AUSTRIA 

"Austria  as  a  great  power,"  said  Rieger,*  in 
a  speech  delivered  in  parliament  in  1861,  **  dates 
back  only  to  the  days  when  the  Bohemian  Crown 
and  the  Hungarian  Crown  united  with  Austria. 
We  Bohemians  raised  it  to  the  dignity  of  a 
state  of  the  first  magnitude  when,  by  a  free  elec- 
tion, our  diet  summoned,  on  October  23,  1526,! 
Ferdinand  I.  to  the  sovereign  throne  of  our  king- 
dom. Our  action  was  followed  on  November 
26th  of  that  year  by  the  Hungarians,  who  placed 
the  crown  of  their  country  on  the  head  of  this 
Hapsburg.  From  that  time  on  Austria,  composed 
of  three  states  in  one,  started  on  its  career  of  a 
world  power.  The  three  units  were  the  basis,  the 
origin,  the  rise  of  the  Austrian  Empire.  All  else  is 
really  the  result  of  accident.    Eastern  Galicia  has 

•  Francis  L.  Rieger  (1818-1903),  a  lawyer,  writer,  economist,  and 
statesman,  was,  despite  his  German  name,  an  uncompromising  patriot 
who  had  spent  his  whole  life  in  the  service  of  his  nation.  Modern 
Bohemia  without  Rieger  is  unthinkable.  His  name  is  written  large 
on  every  page  of  his  country's  history.  As  a  leader  of  the  Old  Bo- 
hemian party  he  naturally  played  a  prominent  role  in  the  fight  for 
the  historical  rehabilitation  of  the  Bohemian  Kingdom.  Having  mar- 
ried the  daughter  of  Francis  Palacky,  the  "  Father  of  the  Nation," 
he  was  nicknamed  by  his  political  adversaries,  "  Son-in-law  of  the 
Nation." 

t  Ferdinand,  however,  took  his  oath  of  office  January  30,   1537. 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  109 

belonged  to  Austria  only  since  1772,  Bukovina 
since  1777,  Western  Galicia  since  1795,  Venice  and 
Dalmatia  since  1797,  Southern  Tyrol  (Trient  and 
Brixen)  since  1801,  Salzburg  and  other  smaller 
lands  since  18 14,  while  Cracow  is  part  of  Austria 
only  since  1846.  All  these  possessions  have  not 
made  Austria  a  great  power,  for  even  without 
them  it  would  still  be  one;  however,  an  Austrian 
Empire  is  unthinkable  and  Austria  as  a  great 
power  is  inconceivable  without  one  of  the  three 
crowns — that  of  Austria,  Bohemia,  or  Hungary." 

AUSTRIA'S  FUTURE  DARK 

What  is  Austria?  A  land  that  has  a  German 
head  and  a  Slavonic  body,  in  which  minorities 
rule  and  majorities  are  made  to  obey,  the  home- 
land of  a  dozen  races,  every  one  of  which  is  dis- 
satisfied or  jealous  of  some  other  race. 

There  was  a  time  when  Austria  had  a  mission  to 
perform.  That  mission  was  to  serve  as  the  ad- 
vance guard  of  Germandom  and  as  a  Catholic 
power.  The  first  came  to  an  end  at  Sedan  when 
the  Prussians  assumed  leadership  among  Germans ; 
the  second  terminated  when  Prussia  gave  up  its 
Kulturkampf  against  Rome.  Now  Austria  is  a 
country  without  a  mission,  unless  it  be  a  mission 
to  thwart  the  legitimate  aspirations  of  the  Slavic 
races  to  national  freedom. 


110         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

For  Austria  to  pursue  further  its  policy  of  Teu- 
tonism  is  madness.  If  the  monarchy  wishes  to 
live  it  must  be  neither  German,  for  there  is  no 
room  in  Europe  for  two  Germanic  Empires  side 
by  side,  nor  wholly  Slavonic,  like  Russia.  Her 
manifest  destiny  is,  or  rather  has  been,  to  form  a 
bridge  between  Germany  and  Russia,  between  the 
Slavs  and  Teutons,  between  the  west  and  the  east. 
For  Germany  to  go  to  war  to  fight  the  Slavic  peril 
is  conceivable,  even  justifiable;  but  for  Austria, 
more  than  60  per  cent.  Slavonic,  to  draw  her 
sword  to  combat  Slavism  sounds  very  much  like 
the  familiar  story  attributed  by  Plutarch  to 
Menenius  Agrippa,  according  to  which  various 
members  of  one's  body  determined  to  down  the 
stomach  as  the  source  of  all  their  troubles.  To 
fight  the  Slavs  Austria  must  fight  herself. 

Plainly  the  destinies  of  Austria  and  Germany 
are  as  unlike  as  are  divergent  their  ambitions.  Ger- 
many aspired  to  be  a  world  power,  a  Weltmacht, 
and  in  pursuance  of  this  dream  she  began  to  build 
up  a  colonial  empire.  Austria  possesses  no  colo- 
nies. The  plan  of  her  statesmen  (Aehrenthal) 
has  been  to  establish  a  predominating  Austrian 
influence  in  the  Balkans,  where  Germany's  inter- 
ests, to  quote  the  well-known  words  of  Bismarck, 
were  not  worth  the  bones  of  one  Pomeranian 
grenadier.     Germany  is  a  homogeneous  country 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  111 

or  nearly  so;  Austria,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  most 
heterogeneous  empire  in  Central  Europe. 

Quite  naturally  the  question  suggests  itself: 
what  would  arise  on  the  splendid  ruins  on  the 
Danube  should  the  proverbial  ill-luck  overtake  the 
Hapsburgs  in  the  present  war  ?  With  Galicia  and 
Bukovina  lost  to  Russia,  with  Transylvania  an- 
nexed to  Rumania,  with  Trentino  and  Trieste 
restored  to  Italy,  and  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  in- 
corporated in  Greater  Serbia — provided  the  parti- 
tion went  no  further — what  would  be  left  of  the 
Hapsburg  inheritance?  Instead  of  a  Greater  Aus- 
tria, that  should  have  included  conquered  Serbia, 
it  is  not  improbable  that  the  Hapsburgs  will  re- 
turn home  from  the  Great  War  with  a  Small 
Austria — an  Austria  as  it  began  in  1527,  when  the 
Austrians,  Bohemians,  and  Hungarians  formed  a 
confederacy  and  elected  a  Hapsburg  as  their  ruler. 

Rieger,  a  Bohemian  statesman,  once  declared 
in  the  Vienna  Parliament,  that  Austria  will  only 
live  as  long  as  the  Slavs  wish  her  to  live  and  no 
longer.  Rieger's  famous  utterance  has  acquired  a 
new  meaning  in  view  of  the  passing  events  in  the 
Hapsburg  Empire. 

Thomas  Capek. 

References:  The  writer  of  this  article  is  largely 
indebted  for  much  of  the  material  to  Professor 
Ernest  Denis'  most  excellent  work.  La  Boheme 
depuis    La    Montagne-Blanche    (lately    translated 


112  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

from  the  French  into  Bohemian).  Among  others 
he  has  consulted  the  following  Bohemian  works : 
Our  Re-birth,  Review  of  Bohemian  National  Life 
Within  the  Last  Half  Century,  by  Jakub  Maly; 
Slavdom,  Pictures  of  Its  Past  and  Present.  (This 
is  a  standard  work  containing  isolated  articles  by 
a  number  of  representative  authors.)  History  of 
Our  Times,  by  Dr.  Jan  Kristufek;  Political  History 
of  the  Bohemian  Nation  from  the  Year  1861  to 
the  Ascension  of  the  Badeni  Ministry  in  1891,  by 
Adolf  Srb;  Political  Ideas  of  Francis  Palacky;  Po- 
litical Utterances  and  Principles  of  Francis  L. 
Rieger;  A  Great  Bohemian:  The  Life,  Work  and 
Meaning  of  Francis  Palacky,  the  Father  of  the  Na- 
tion, by  Vacslav  Reznicek;  Karel  Havlicek:  Aims 
and  Hopes  of  Political  Awakening,  by  T.  G. 
Masaryk. 


II 

THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

THE  Slovaks,  a  branch  of  the  Slavic  family, 
numbering  between  2,(X)0,ooo  and  3,000,- 
000  people,  and  kinsmen  of  the  Bohemians, 
inhabit  the  northwestern  provinces  of  Hungary, 
There  is  not  uniform  agreement  among  Slovak 
scholars  with  reference  to  the  ethnic  affinity  of  this 
people  with  the  Bohemians.  Are  the  Slovaks  a 
direct  offshoot  of  the  Bohemians  or  a  separate 
branch  of  the  Slavic  family?  Ethnologists  find 
convincing  arguments  for  and  against  both 
theories.  Bohemians,  as  may  be  surmised,  take 
the  ground  that  they  and  the  Slovaks  are  one — 
one  in  language  and  one  in  racial  traditions — and 
that  nothing  divides  them  except  political  bound- 
aries,— the  Slovaks  being  subject  to  the  rule  of 
Hungary,  Bohemians  owing  allegiance  to  Austria. 
Samo  Czambel,  a  learned  Slovak,  published  a 
book  recently  on  the  grammatical  peculiarities  of 
his  mother  tongue  in  which,  contrary  to  the  almost 
universal  opinion  of  philologists  that  Slovak  is  but 
an  older  form  of  Bohemian,  he  contends  that  the 

118 


114  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

old  grouping  of  Slovak  jointly  with  Bohemian  is 
wrong;  and  that  the  language  should  be  treated  as 
an  independent  Slavic  idiom,  precisely  in  the  same 
way  as  Polish,  Russian,  etc.  But,  though  gram- 
marians may  disagree  about  this  or  that  Slovak 
or  Bohemian  root  or  termination  of  a  verb;  though 
they  may  fancy  they  see  a  difference  where  prob- 
ably none  exists,  the  people  themselves  have  no 
quarrels  to  pick,  no  disputes  to  adjust.  On  the 
contrary,  they  have  always  been  good  neighbors  * 
and  loyal  friends.  As  for  real  differences  of 
speech,  these  are  so  slight  that  a  Slovak  will  under- 
stand a  Bohemian  as  readily  as  an  Englishman 
from  Yorkshire  will  his  cousin,  the  Yankee.  One 
is  reminded  of  the  closeness  of  the  two  languages 
when  one  recalls  that  Slovaks  of  the  Protestant 
faith  read  at  their  church  services  from  the  Bo- 
hemian Bible.  Recently  a  meeting  of  representa- 
tive Bohemians  and  Slovaks  f  in  New  York 
passed  a  resolution,  in  which  occurs  this  significant 
passage:  "  Nothing  now  separates  us,  except  that 
we  owe  political  allegiance  to  two  different  states, 
one  to  Austria,  the  other  to  Hungary.  Remove 
that  barrier,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  the  Bohe- 

•  "  The  Slovaks  and  Their  Language  "  (Slovici  a  ich  Rec),  by  Dr. 
Samo  Czambel,  Budapest,   1903. 

t  Among  the  Slovak  spokesmen  at  this  meeting  was  Editor  Milan 
Getting,  of  New  York.  At  a  subsequent  conference  was  present 
Albert  Mamatey,  President  of  the  National   Slovak   Society. 


THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY        115 

mians  and  Slovaks  are  one  in  language,  one  in 
blood,  one  in  national  faith,  indissoluble  and  in- 
divisible." 

According  to  the  census  of  19 lo,  a  census,  by 
the  v^ay,  notoriously  unreliable,  Slovaks  number 
1,967,970.  If  an  enumeration  were  taken  free 
of  intrigue  and  coercion,  the  actual  number  of 
Slovaks,  it  is  asserted,  v^ould  be  nearer  2,500,000; 
and,  were  we  to  include  as  Slovaks  the  opportunists 
who  everywhere  go  with  the  ruling  element,  and 
further,  were  we  to  add  those  who  are  compelled, 
for  various  reasons,  to  conceal  their  nationality, 
the  actual  number  would  not  be  far  from  3,000,000. 
Outside  of  Slovakland  Slovaks  are  scattered 
throughout  Hungary  except  in  Transylvania. 
There  are  few  districts  in  Hungary  in  which  they 
do  not  live.  The  various  settlements  in  the  in- 
terior of  the  country  are  in  part  ramifications  of 
Slovakland  proper,  which  formerly  extended  fur- 
ther south  into  Hungary  than  at  present  and  in 
part  colonies,  the  origin  of  which  dates  back  to 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 

When  did  the  Slovaks  come  to  Hungary  ?  Prob- 
ably the  question  could  best  be  answered  by  saying 
that  they  had  always  lived  there.  Certain  pseudo- 
historians  wish  to  make  it  appear  that  the  Slovaks 
are  descendants  of  immigrants  from  Bohemia  who 
fled  to  Hungary  to  escape  religious  and  political 


116         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

persecution.  The  truth  is,  however,  that  their 
ancestors  occupied  the  Carpathian  highlands  from 
the  dawn  of  history.  The  Slovaks  of  Hungary 
are  not  immigrants,  and  no  authoritative  historian 
has  successfully  disputed  their  claim  to  priority  as 
one  of  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  the  Kingdom  of 
St.  Stephen. 

Down  to  the  middle  of  the  last  century  no  one 
of  the  languages  spoken  by  the  different  racial 
elements  in  Hungary  acquired  predominance.  For 
the  purposes  of  every-day  life  each  race  was  free 
to  use  its  mother  tongue.  During  the  mediaeval 
period  Latin  was  the  medium  of  communication 
among  the  cultured  classes.  Latin  was  gradually 
superseded  by  the  German  language  and  the  Slo- 
vaks, though  grieved  at  the  wanton  suppression  of 
their  vernacular,  did  not  feel  that  their  national 
existence  had  been  threatened  by  the  innovation. 
But  when,  in  1867,  Austria  concluded  with  Him- 
gary  the  Act  of  Settlement,  whereby  the  dual 
system  of  government  was  introduced,  and  the 
Magyars  secured  for  themselves  ascendency  over 
all  the  other  races  in  the  kingdom,  the  danger  be- 
came acute,  and  has  been  growing  steadily  since, 
until  now  the  Slovaks  are  menaced  by  denational- 
ization. True,  the  Law  of  Nationalities  was  pro- 
mulgated soon  after  the  Act  of  Settlement,  osten- 
sibly for  the  protection  of  non-Magyars;  but  this 


THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY       117 

law,  in  the  words  of  Plutarch,  "  is  like  a  spider 
web  and  would  catch  the  weak  and  the  poor;  but 
may  easily  be  broken  by  the  mighty  rich."  Bitter 
experience  has  shown  that  under  the  Law  of 
Nationalities,  the  very  acts  which  the  law  was 
designed  to  prevent  or  regulate,  have  been  per- 
petrated with  impunity,  either  by  omission  or  com- 
mission. 

Students  of  Slovak  nationality  have  been  ex- 
pelled by  school  authorities  from  seminaries  and 
secondary  schools  for  Pan-Slavic  propaganda. 
Pan-Slavism  in  the  case  of  these  unfortunate 
youths  consists  in  the  reading,  recitation,  or  cir- 
culation of  literature  in  one  of  the  Slavic  tongues. 

Journalists  are  prosecuted  or  jailed  for  alleged 
seditious  articles  against  the  Hungarian  State; 
newspapers  are  mulcted  in  ruinous  fines,  in  many 
cases  tantamount  to  their  suppression.  In  coun- 
tries enjoying  the  blessing  of  freedom  of  speech 
and  press,  de  facto  and  not  only  de  jure,  the  ar- 
ticles which  Hungarian  prosecuting  attorneys  con- 
strue as  seditious,  would  be  regarded  as  an  honest 
and  fearless  criticism  of  the  acts  of  government. 
There  are  few  Slovak  journalists  who  have  not 
served  terms  in  jail  or  whose  newspapers  have  not 
been  fined. 

To  plead  one's  case  in  the  courts  in  the  Slovak 
language,  notwithstanding  the  express  provisions 


118         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

of  the  Law  of  Nationalities  permitting  this  pro- 
cedure, would  be  prejudicial  to  the  litigant's  case 
in  the  lower  courts  and  impossible  in  the  higher 
courts. 

A  patriotic  Slovak  may  not  hold  a  government 
position  of  any  trust  or  importance.  One  aspir- 
ing to  an  office  in  any  way  connected  with  the 
government,  directly  or  indirectly,  must  of  neces- 
sity renounce  his  nationality — or,  in  the  alterna- 
tive, conceal  his  true  inward  feelings,  both  before 
his  superiors  and  before  his  friends. 

Apparently  with  the  object  of  making  the  world 
believe  that  Slovakland  has  always  been  Magyar, 
the  Hungarian  Government  is  abolishing  the  an- 
cient Slavic  nomenclature  of  villages  and  towns, 
replacing  it  with  Magyar  names,  and  this  crusade 
is  undertaken  in  districts  where  from  times  im- 
memorial no  other  speech  had  been  heard  but 
Slovak.* 

A  visiting  Hungarian  statesman  boasted  before 
an  American  audience  in  New  York  City  that  the 
laws  of  Hungary  were  as  broad  and  liberal  as 
those  in  the  United  States.  If  such  were  the  case, 
why  are  not  Slovaks  permitted  to  establish  schools 
and  organize  themselves  into  societies  as  freely  as 

•  The  very  worda  "Slovak,"  "  Slovakland,"  "  Slovak  natipn  "  are 
tabooed  in  Hungary,  and  school  books  containing  them  prohibited. 
Hungarian  officialdom  refers  to  Slovakland  as  the  Hungarian  High- 
lands. 


THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY        119 

in  the  United  States?  In  the  early  seventies  of 
the  last  century  the  government  closed  all  the 
Slovak  secondary  schools  (gymnasia)  on  the  pre- 
text that  they  fostered  among  the  pupils  and 
professors  Pan-Slavic  propaganda.  Since  that 
time,  and  despite  the  plain  language  of  the  Law  of 
Nationalities,  assuring  to  every  race  education  in 
its  native  tongue,  Slovaks  have  been  unable  to 
obtain  from  the  authorities  consent  to  the  reopen- 
ing of  even  one  higher  school.  Think  of  a  nation 
of  two  millions  and  a  half,  living  in  the  heart  of 
Europe,  not  having  one  higher  school  for  the  edu- 
cation of  its  youth !  In  1875  the  government  con- 
fiscated the  funds  of  an  educational  institution, 
and  with  the  money  undertook  to  publish  at  Buda- 
pest "  a  patriotic  Hungarian  journal."  At  the 
University  of  Budapest,  the  Slovak  idiom  is  studi- 
ously ignored  by  the  instructors,  though  the 
Slovaks  are  heavy  taxpayers,  and  even  a  biased 
census  concedes  10  per  cent.  Slovak  population  in 
the  country.  Slovak  elementary  schools  are  fast 
disappearing;  those  that  still  remain  in  Slovakland 
are  either  mixed,  that  is  Slovak-Magyar,  or  pure 
Magyar.  Under  the  provision  of  the  Apponyi 
Law,  Magyar  is  the  only  recognized  language  of 
instruction  in  elementary  schools  in  Hungary 
which  are  attended  by  twenty  or  more  Magyar 
children.    Since  the  normal  schools  are  all  Magyar, 


1«0         BOHEML\NS  AND  SLOVAKS 

it  is  obvious  that  the  future  teachers  of  Slovak 
children  will  have  no  means,  except  by  private 
study,  to  leam  the  language  of  their  little  charges. 

Neither  Vienna  nor  Budapest  will  listen  to  their 
appeal  for  justice.  The  Lord  is  too  high  and  the 
Emperor-King  too  far  away  to  hear  and  see  the 
Slovaks.  The  Rumuns  in  Transylvania  may  hope 
for  succor  from  their  motherland,  Rumania;  Ital- 
ians in  the  unredeemed  provinces  may  look  for- 
ward to  the  time  when  Italy  will  liberate  them 
from  Austrian  misrule;  even  the  Serbs  in  South- 
ern Hungary  find  new  courage  in  resisting  oppres- 
sion by  reason  of  their  nearness  to  their  brothers 
in  the  Serbian  Kingdom.  Whence  shall  Slovaks 
look  for  sympathy  and  help?  Their  nearest  kins- 
men, the  Bohemians,  who,  of  all  the  nations,  best 
understand  them,  are  themselves  held  down  by  an 
alien  oppressor  and  unable  to  give  them  other  than 
moral  aid. 

"  In  comparison  with  the  Government  of  Mag- 
yarland  the  Government  of  Austria  is  a  model  of 
tolerance."  * 

This  is  the  opinion  of  an  Englishman  who 
knows  conditions  in  Hungary  well.  Exterminate 
the  race,  suppress  its  language,  obliterate  every 
evidence  of  its  existence :  that  is  now  and  has  been 

•  London  Times,  January  ao,  1915. 


THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY        121 

for  decades  the  policy  of  the  Hungarian  Govern- 
ment toward  the  Slovaks. 

Some  time  ago  the  American  Slovaks  formu- 
lated a  demand  for  autonomy  in  a  memorandum 
which  they  sent  to  influential  friends  and  to  those 
whom  they  hope  to  win  as  friends.  The  memo- 
randum "  voices  the  sentiment  and  national  aspira- 
tions, not  only  of  Slovaks  living  in  the  United 
States,  but  also  interprets  the  mind  and  the  will 
of  their  brothers,  inhabiting,  since  times  im- 
memorial, the  ancestral  homelands  of  the  race." 
That  the  American  Slovaks  took  the  initiative  in 
issuing  the  memorandum  is  not  hard  to  under- 
stand. "  The  Slovaks  at  home  are  not  permitted  to 
approach  their  king  with  grievances,  the  last  depu- 
tation to  him  having  been  denied  admittance. 
Slovaks,  therefore,  are  made  to  feel  that  they  have 
no  king,  only  a  government — a  government,  how- 
ever, that  knows  no  mercy,  that  feels  no  remorse, 
that  offers  no  hope,  that  fears  no  punishment.  If 
Slovaks  are  resolved  to  speak  at  all,  if  they  wish 
the  world  at  large  to  know  the  measure  of  their 
wrongs,  under  existing  conditions,  they  can  only 
appeal  through  the  medium  of  their  compatriots 
in  the  United  States." 

Of  the  Magyars  as  a  nation  the  Slovaks  do  not 
complain.  It  is  the  Hungarian  Government  which 
they  accuse  of  oppression. 


U2         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

When  the  time  approaches  to  re-draw  the  map 
of  Austria-Hungary,  the  Slovaks  will  ask  to  be 
freed  from  the  Hungarian  yoke.  And  if  they 
cannot  have  a  government  of  their  own,  their  sec- 
ond choice  is  to  co-operate  with  the  Bohemians 
toward  thfe  establishment  of  a  confederacy  that 
shall  include  the  autonomous  states  of  Bohemia, 
Moravia,  Silesia,  and  Slovakland.  Thus  to  the 
present  ethnical  unity  of  Slovaks  and  Bohemians 
another  bond  would  be  added,  that  of  political 
unity. 

Thomas  Capek. 

References :  The  Slovaks  of  Hungary,  The  Knick- 
erbocker Press,  New  York,  1906,  by  Thomas 
Capek;  Racial  Problems  in  Hungary,  Archibald 
Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  London,  1908,  by  Scotus 
Viator.  Die  Unterdriickung  der  Slovaken  durch  die 
Magyar  en,  Prague,  1903. 


Ill 

WHY    BOHEMIA    DESERVES    FREEDOM 

By  Professor  B.  Simek  of  the  State  Univer- 
sity OF  Iowa  * 

IN  the  present  European  crisis  several  nations 
are  hoping  for  a  betterment  of  their  political 
fortunes.    Among  these  not  the  least  hopeful 
are  the  Bohemians  in  the  historic  Kingdom  of 
Bohemia,  now  annexed  to  the  Austrian  Empire. 

Many  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  situation  will 
probably  ask :  Why  should  the  Bohemians  seek  in- 
dependence? Are  they  not  more  secure  as  a  part 
of  a  large  empire?  It  is  in  anticipation  of,  and 
in  response  to  such  questions  that  the  following 
facts  are  presented. 

Bohemia  has  not  received  just  treatment  at  the 
hands  of  the  Austrian  Government.  Her  national 
spirit  has  been  offended  or  ignored,  her  people 
have  been  oppressed,  her  schools  are  not  ade- 
quately maintained,  and  the  scant  support  which 
they  now  receive  has  been  wrung  from  the  gov- 

•  The  writer  is  a  representative  type  of  the  sturdy  settler  of  Bo- 
hemian ancestry  who  helped  to  build  up  the  Northwest.  He  sojourned 
in  the  birthland  of  bis  parents  when  the  war  broke  out. 

128 


124         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

ernment  only  by  tremendous  effort,  and  in  times 
of  great  political  stress.  Even  now  the  people  are 
compelled  to  maintain  schools  in  some  parts  of  the 
kingdom  by  voluntary  contributions.  The  govern- 
ment has  done  nothing  for  Bohemia  either  politi- 
cally, intellectually,  or  industrially,  excepting  under 
compulsion.  Therefore  there  is  no  reason  for  a 
grateful  desire  to  perpetuate  the  present  relation. 
Bohemia  has  heretofore  been  loyal  to  Austria  only 
because  she  faced  a  greater  danger  from  German 
absorption. 

The  grounds  on  which  the  Bohemians  ask  the 
right  to  shape  their  own  destinies  as  a  nation  are 
chiefly  the  following : 

I.  The  historic  right. — The  House  of  Hapsburg 
was  called  to  the  throne  of  Bohemia  by  voluntary 
election.  The  first  Hapsburg  to  attempt  to  rule 
Bohemia  was  Rudolph  (1306- 1307),  who  was 
forced  upon  the  country  for  a  short  time  by  the 
German  Emperor,  and  who  attempted  to  secure 
the  color  of  a  right  to  rule  by  marrying  the  widow 
of  the  last  Bohemian  King  of  the  Pfemysl  line. 
His  right  to  rule  was  contested,  and  upon  his  death 
the  Bohemians  selected  several  kings  from  other 
ruling  houses,  and  it  was  not  until  1437  that  an- 
other Hapsburg,  Albrecht,  was  again  voluntarily 
elected  King  of  Bohemia.  But  after  a  brief  rule 
of  two  years,  -during  which  he  violated  his  oath 


DESERVES  FREEDOM  125 

and  his  pledges  to  the  Bohemian  people,  he  was 
again  succeeded  by  a  line  of  kings  elected  from 
various  ruling  houses,  and  the  greatest  of  them, 
George  of  Podebrad,  the  Protestant  king  who 
ruled  from  1458  to  1471,  from  among  their  own 
nobility. 

It  was  not  until  1526  that  another  Hapsburg, 
Ferdinand  L,  was  elected  king  by  the  Bohemian 
Diet,  but  he  soon  destroyed  the  old  charter  in 
accordance  with  which  he  was  recognized  as  a 
king  by  election,  and  usurped  the  power  which  the 
House  of  Hapsburg  continued  to  exercise  for 
some  time.  But  in  1619  the  Bohemians  reasserted 
their  right  to  elect  their  kings  and  chose  Frederick 
of  the  Palatinate,  thus  precipitating  the  Thirty 
Years'  War.  But  notwithstanding  the  reverses 
which  the  Bohemians  suffered,  Ferdinand  H.  of 
Hapsburg,  who  ascended  the  throne,  was  obliged  to 
take  oath  "  to  maintain  the  privileges  and  liberties 
of  the  kingdom  "  and  to  "  govern  the  kingdom  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  and  usages  of  the  kings,  his 
predecessors,  and  especially  Charles  IV." 

During  the  long  dark  night  which  followed  the 
deep  tragedy  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the  Haps- 
burgs  ruled  over  Bohemia,  but  the  nation  never 
conceded  them  the  right  to  incorporate  their  coun- 
try in  any  other,  and  in  1868  formally  declared 
that  "  the  Kingdom  of  Bohemia  is  attached  to  the 


126         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

empire  by  a  purely  personal  tie," — that  is,  through 
the  person  of  the  king  who  was  also  Emperor 
of  Austria.  Francis  Josef  himself  soon  after 
recognized  this  right  and  promised  to  be  crowned 
King  of  Bohemia,  but  this  promise  was  broken. 
For  the  reasons  here  given  the  Bohemians  claim 
that  their  kingdom  is  still  a  distinct  political 
entity. 

2.  Their  political  capacity. — Time  and  again  the 
Bohemians  have  demonstrated  their  loyalty  to  high 
political  ideals  and  their  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment. They  never  recognized  the  **  divine  right  " 
of  kings  to  rule, — unlike  their  German  neighbors, 
most  of  whom  recognize  the  "  right "  to-day. 
They  elected  their  own  kings,  who  were  bound  by 
what  was  practically  equivalent  to  our  modern  con- 
stitution, and  they  sometimes  chose  these  kings 
from  their  own  midst;  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  they  were  seriously  contem- 
plating a  form  of  government  not  unlike  that  of 
our  own  country;  and  to-day  they  are  hoping  for 
a  republic,  or  at  least  for  a  monarchy  as  liberal 
and  innocuous  as  that  of  England.  Indeed,  for 
several  centuries  their  political  ideals  have  ap- 
proached nearer  to  those  of  England  than  of  any 
other  of  the  greater  European  nations. 

3.  Their  intellectual  power. — A  nation  claiming 
the  right  of  self-government  is  usually  expected 


DESERVES  FREEDOM  127 

to  show  competent  intellectual  capacity.  This  the 
Bohemians  have  demonstrated  beyond  a  doubt. 
When  we  consider  the  great  odds  against  which 
they  contended  when  they  struggled  to  re- 
establish their  schools  and  their  intellectual  life, 
the  progress  which  they  have  made  in  the  past 
century  is  astonishing.  The  city  of  Prague  is 
to-day  one  of  the  greatest  publishing  centres  in 
Europe.  The  growth  of  Bohemian  literature  in 
all  its  branches  has  been  stupendous,  and  to-day 
Bohemia  leads  the  Empire  of  Austria  with  the 
smallest  percentage  of  illiterates  and  is  one  of  the 
leaders  of  Europe  in  this  respect! 

Nor  are  these  educational  and  intellectual  ideals 
a  gift  of  the  Germans,  as  has  been  asserted  in  cer- 
tain prejudiced  quarters.  Bohemia  had  a  great 
university,  that  of  Prague,  before  a  single  institu- 
tion of  the  kind  had  been  established  within  the 
limits  either  of  the  present  German  Empire  or 
any  other  part  of  the  present  Empire  of  Austria. 
This  has  been  claimed  repeatedly  as  a  German  uni- 
versity, but  it  was  established  in  1348  by  Charles 
rV.,  whose  mother  was  a  Bohemian,  and  whose 
sentiments  were  wholly  Bohemian.  He  was  edu- 
cated in  the  University  of  Paris,  and  that  institu- 
tion furnished  the  model  for  his  new  university. 
Following  the  Paris  plan  he  gave  two  votes  to  the 
German  nations  in  the  management  of  the  univer- 


1£8         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

sity  (a  courtesy  which  they  have  never  been  in- 
clined to  imitate),  but  like  all  other  institutions 
of  that  period  the  university  was  Latin,  and  not 
in  any  sense  German.  Fifty  years  later  it  passed 
wholly  under  the  control  of  the  Bohemians  and 
developed  into  one  of  the  greatest  universities  of 
Europe,  sharing  this  honor  with  Paris  and  Oxford, 
and  for  more  than  two  centuries  it  continued  to  be 
one  of  the  world's  great  centres  of  intellectual 
activity  and  inspiration.  The  Thirty  Years'  War 
overwhelmed  it,  and  transformed  it  into  a  Grerman 
institution  for  a  long  time,  but  a  third  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  it  was  re-established  as  a  Bohemian  in- 
stitution, and  has  now  far  outstripped  its  German 
rival  in  the  same  city  which  was  forced  upon  the 
nation  in  the  effort  to  Germanize  it. 

It  is  also  a  matter  of  historic  interest  that  as 
early  as  1294  a  King  of  Bohemia,  Vaclav  II.,  at- 
tempted to  establish  a  university  at  Prague,  but  the 
plan  failed  because  of  dissensions  between  the  ec- 
clesiastics and  the  nobility. 

The  Bohemian  people  have  abundant  intellectual 
traditions  of  their  own,  and  their  devotion  to  their 
educational  interests  has  been  tested  repeatedly 
and  found  not  wanting. 

4.  The  moral  and  ethical  right. — Why  should 
any  other  nation  rule  Bohemia?  The  Bohemian 
people  are  intellectual,  with  high  political  ideals 


DESERVES  FREEDOM  12d 

and  splendid  traditions,  and  they  are  industrially 
progressive.  They  are  competent  to  direct  their 
own  affairs,  and  it  is  only  the  insolent  usurper 
who  can  assume  to  lay  claim  to  the  right  to  rule 
over  them.  Bohemia  is  a  fertile  country  blessed 
with  boundless  riches  which  should  be  employed  to 
sustain  a  happy,  busy,  progressive  nation,  and  not 
a  usurping  military  power,  and  that  nation  has  a 
right  to  be  free ! 

This  briefly  is  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  the  Bohemian 
nation.  Whatsoever  may  be  the  form  of  the  gov- 
ernment which  will  come  to  liberated  Bohemia, 
all  lovers  of  freedom  will  join  in  the  hope  of  the 
realization  of  the  spirit  of  the  prophecy  of  Doctor 
John  Jesensky  of  Jesen,  one  of  the  martyr  leaders 
of  the  Bohemians  who  were  executed  at  Prague  in 
1621,  who  proclaimed  from  the  scaffold:  **  It  is 
vain  that  Ferdinand  gluts  his  rage  for  blood;  a 
king  elected  by  us  shall  again  ascend  the  throne 
of  Bohemia!" 


IV 

THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER 

By  Herbert  Adolphus  Miller,  Ph.D.,  Pro- 
fessor OF  Sociology,  Oberlin  College, 
Ohio* 

THE  mental  and  moral  characteristics  of  any 
social  group  are  the  product  of  a  wide 
variety  of  complex  influences  of  a  pre- 
eminently psychological  nature.  The  suggestions 
that  come  through  tradition  and  history  result  in 
mental  reactions  that  become  so  typical  of  the 
group  that  it  is  popular  to  call  them  inborn  and 
racial.  The  easy  assumption  of  this  explanation 
hinders  the  more  fundamental  discovery  of  why 
certain  characteristics  prevail.  The  Bohemians 
illustrate  this  principle  of  the  creative  influence  of 
definite  ideas. 

A  Bohemian  is  a  Slav.  The  influence  of  this 
relationship  is  the  broadest  and  most  general.  It 
has  become  self-conscious  only  in  comparatively 
recent  times,  i.e.,  two  or  three  generations.    Previ- 

•  Professor  Miller  has  traveled  in  Bohemia  and  is  gathering  mate- 
rial on  the  history  of  that  country. 

.       130 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       131 

ously  there  was  much  changing  from  Slav  to  Teu- 
ton and  vice  versa.  Unquestionably  a  very  large 
proportion  of  Prussians  have  a  considerable  in- 
fusion of  Slavic  blood,  and  many  Bohemians  have 
German  ancestors.  In  centres  like  Pilsen  or 
Prague,  where  the  two  races  have  lived  together  for 
a  long  time,  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  tell  them 
apart  until  they  begin  to  speak,  and  then  the  iden- 
tity may  be  concealed  by  using  the  other  language. 
Within  the  last  seventy-five  years  there  has  been 
a  clear  recognition  of  the  Slavic  relationship  which 
has  taken  the  form  of  conscious  efforts  to  preserve 
certain  Slavic  characteristics,  and  to  join  with  the 
others  in  withstanding  the  influence  and  authority 
of  the  Germans.  There  have  been  certain  other 
Slavic  characteristics  that  have  persisted  in  all  the 
Slavic  groups  which  will  be  mentioned  later  when 
we  consider  their  contribution  to  democracy. 

For  something  over  five  hundred  years  the  Bo- 
hemians have  been  clearly  conscious  of  their 
Bohemian  nationality  and  much  that  is  distinctive 
of  them  has  been  developed  and  is  still  being  de- 
veloped in  them  by  this  national  history,  and 
nothing  of  it  can  be  understood  except  in  the  light 
of  this  historical  influence.  The  two  most  influen- 
tial forces  have  been  John  Hus.  who  made  Bohemia 
Protestant  a  century  before  Luther,  and  who  was 
burned  at  the  stake  in  141 5;  and  Comenius  the 


132  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

world  educator,  who  was  exiled  for  his  connec- 
tion with  the  Protestant  Church  of  Bohemian 
Brethren.  These  two  national  heroes  planted  the 
seeds  which  differentiated  the  Bohemians  from  the 
rest  of  the  Slavs  in  religious  freedom  and  respect 
for  education.  Hus  also  was  the  symbol  for  the 
development  of  nationalism  and  the  consequent 
revival  of  the  language  which  have  occupied  such  a 
large  place  in  the  attention  of  the  Bohemian  people. 
The  two  most  characteristic  expressions  of  these 
influences  are  now  found  in  Nationalism  and  Free- 
thought,  and  no  appreciation  of  the  condition  and 
purposes  of  the  people  can  be  complete  without 
reckoning  with  these  facts. 

From  about  1400  for  more  than  two  hundred 
years  Bohemia  was  a  leader  in  European  culture, 
but  the  Thirty  Years'  War  crushed  her  so  that 
some  claim  that  she  has  had  no  history  since  1620. 
Count  Liitzow  says  that  "  Bohemia  presents  the 
nearly  unique  case  of  a  country  which  was  formerly 
almost  entirely  Protestant  and  has  become  almost 
entirely  Catholic.  The  popular  optimistic  fallacy 
which  maintains  that  in  no  country  has  the  re- 
ligious belief  been  entirely  suppressed  by  persecu- 
tion and  brute  force  is  disproved  by  the  fate  of 
Bohemia."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  instead  of  being 
suppressed,  it  was  smouldering  during  the  cen- 
turies and  now  constitutes  an  amazing  unanim- 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       133 

ity  of  mind  and  feeling  among  the  nation  in  regard 
to  religion.  Immediately  after  the  Act  of  Toler- 
ance in  1 78 1  there  sprang  up  here  and  there 
churches  which  took  up  the  old  faith  exactly  where 
it  had  been  left  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  before.  Free-thinking  is  in  part  a  philos- 
ophy, but  it  is  more  particularly  a  sign  of  national 
character. 

In  the  past  it  has  been  the  custom  of  nations 
to  try  to  absorb  all  within  their  political  bound- 
aries into  the  character  of  the  governing  group, 
however  much  they  may  have  differed  in  traditions 
and  customs.  Austria  not  only  tried  to  make  Bo- 
hemians Catholics  but  Germans,  and  the  history 
of  the  effort  ought  to  make  clear  for  ever  that 
political  science  must  adjust  itself  to  the  laws  of 
human  nature,  and  that  the  way  to  develop  the 
individualism  of  a  people  is  to  try  to  blot  it  out. 
Whatever  may  be  said  about  the  superiority  of 
one  culture  over  another  it  cannot  be  imposed  by 
force,  and  the  Germans  have  been  stupidly  slow 
in  discovering  this  fundamental  fact.  Bohemia  is 
but  a  single  example  of  this  new  consciousness 
which  is  called  Nationalism.  The  Poles,  Lithua- 
nians, Finns,  Magyars,  Irish,  and  all  the  Slavic 
groups  are  showing  that  there  is  a  psychological 
force  to  be  reckoned  with  which  military  force 
cannot  overcome.    The  contribution  of  the  variety 


1S4         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

of  cultures  is  what  will  enrich  the  life  of  civiliza- 
tion and  not  the  pre-eminence  of  one,  whatever 
that  one  may  be.  Some  evidence  of  the  way  in 
which  the  revival  of  nation  spirit  is  taking  place 
among  the  Bohemians  will  show  what  a  tremen- 
dous force  this  spirit  is. 

Count  Liitzow,  in  an  address  given  in  Prague 
in  191 1,  brings  out  the  present  situation:  "  One  of 
the  most  interesting  facts  that  in  Bohemia  and 
especially  in  Prague  mark  the  period  of  peace  at 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  the  re- 
vival of  the  national  feeling  and  language.  .  .  . 
The  greatest  part  of  Bohemia,  formerly  almost 
Germanized,  has  now  again  become  thoroughly 
Slavic.  The  national  language,  for  a  time  used 
only  by  the  peasantry  in  outlying  districts,  is  now 
freely  and  generally  used  by  the  educated  classes 
in  most  parts  of  the  country.  Prague  itself,  that 
had  for  a  time  acquired  almost  the  appearance  of  a 
German  town,  has  now  a  thoroughly  Slavic  char- 
acter. The  national  literature  also,  which  had  al- 
most ceased  to  exist,  is  in  a  very  flourishing  state, 
particularly  since  the  foundation  of  a  national 
university.  At  no  period  have  so  many  and  so 
valuable  books  been  written  in  the  Bohemian  lan- 
guage." 

About  sixty  years  ago  several  Bohemian  writ- 
ers were  bold  enough  to  write  in  their  own  Ian- 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       135 

guage  instead  of  German  and  from  that  time  the 
Bohemian  spirit  has  grown  until  opposition  to  the 
overbearing  Germanism  became  almost  a  passion. 
Wherever  the  Germans  were  in  a  majority  only 
German  public  schools  were  provided,  but  wherever 
the  municipality  had  fewer  Germans  than  Slavs 
German  as  well  as  Bohemian  schools  were  pro- 
vided. To  meet  this  discrimination  Bohemians, 
both  at  home  and  in  America,  have  contributed  to  a 
remarkable  degree  for  the  "  Mother  of  Schools  " 
(association)  which  supports  Bohemian  schools  of 
first  caliber  in  the  minority  communities.  There 
are  no  other  Slavs  who  compare  with  the  Bohe- 
mians in  the  high  regard  for  schools.  As  one 
goes  through  the  country  he  is  struck  by  the  palatial 
school  building  even  in  poor  peasant  villages.  It 
seems  to  bear  a  relation  similar  to  the  prison  and 
church  in  a  Russian  town.  The  inevitable  result 
of  this  universal  spirit  is  the  gradual  elimination 
of  the  German  language.  German  had  nearly 
vanished  from  the  streets  of  Prague.  One  fared 
ill  in  a  restaurant  if  his  German  were  good  enough 
to  sound  genuine  though  the  waiter  understood 
perfectly.  Business  men  were  beginning  to  take 
pride  in  the  fact  that  they  could  succeed  without 
knowing  any  German,  and  fathers  who  were  reared 
with  German  as  a  mother  tongue  taught  their  chil- 
dren Bohemian  instead.     The  unifying  force  of 


186         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

this  national  feeling  has  been  going  on  with  great 
rapidity  in  the  face  of  the  disrupting  force  of 
eleven  political  parties,  besides  the  sharp  spiritual 
division  into  Catholics  and  anti-Catholics. 

It  could  not  fail  to  be  a  distinct  disadvantage 
for  a  people  of  seven  or  eight  million  to  cut  itself 
off  from  the  opportunities  of  the  environing  Ger- 
man culture,  science,  and  commerce,  but  those  who 
saw  this  most  clearly  deliberately  assumed  the  cost 
in  their  struggle  for  the  freedom  of  the  spirit. 
When  we  remember  that  prestige  was  on  the  side 
of  the  German  one  sees  a  sacrifice  approaching 
nobility.  At  the  time  the  Olympic  games  were  be- 
ing held  in  Europe  and  attracting  the  attention  of 
the  world  a  far  more  important  athletic  meet  was 
being  held  in  Prague.  This  was  Slavic  in  its  mem- 
bership, though  Bohemian  in  its  origin.  More 
than  twenty  thousand  persons  took  part,  and  at 
one  time  eleven  thousand  men,  speaking  several 
different  languages,  were  doing  calisthenic  exer- 
cises together.  With  the  exception  of  the  Poles, 
who  would  not  come  because  the  Russians  were  in- 
vited, there  were  representatives  of  all  the  Slavic 
nationalities,  and  the  keynote  of  every  speech  was 
"  Slavie !  Slavie ! "  and  when  it  was  uttered  the 
crowds  would  go  wild.  There  were  a  quarter  of 
a  million  visitors  in  the  city,  and  illustrated  re- 
ports of  the  exhibition  went  to  the  ends  of  the 


THE  BOHE^IIAN  CHARACTER       1S7 

Slavic  world.  A  few  weeks  afterwards  I  saw  some 
of  them  pasted  on  the  wall  of  a  primitive  factory 
in  the  back  districts  of  Moscow.  But  the  German 
papers  completely  ignored  the  whole  thing  and  no 
self-respecting  German  could  attend,  though  it  was 
undoubtedly  the  greatest  thing  of  the  sort  ever 
held. 

Two  years  ago  when  war  was  threatening  be- 
tween Austria  and  Serbia,  Bohemians  who  were 
being  entrained  from  their  garrison  for  mobiliza- 
tion on  the  Serbian  border,  in  more  than  one  case 
sang  the  Pan-Slavic  hymn,  "  Hej  Slovane !  "  fa- 
miliar to  all  Slavic  nations,  but  forbidden  to  Aus- 
trian soldiers  in  service.  They  used  a  popular 
parody  in  this  enthusiastic  and  powerful  hymn, 
full  of  encouragement  to  the  Slavs,  telling  them  that 
their  language  shall  never  perish  nor  shall  they 
"  even  though  the  number  of  Germans  equal  the 
number  of  souls  in  hell."  It  is  said  that  at  this 
time  at  least  seventy  thousand  Slavs  in  Austria 
eligible  to  military  service  quit  the  country. 

The  Germans  have  succeeded  in  making  the  Bo- 
hemian culture  almost  identical  with  theirs,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  find  in  the  German  any  traits  that 
can  be  called  specifically  Bohemian.  Only  a  long 
future  can  tell  whether  there  are  actually  inherent 
psychological  differences  which  can  account  for 
aggressiveness  in  the  one  and  passivity  in  the  other. 


138         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

We  may  assume,  however,  that  we  have  not  had 
time  to  test  the  subtle  forces  which  work  on  social 
groups  and  give  them  a  cast  of  thought  that 
seems  biologically  inherent.  No  Slavic  people  has 
exhibited  the  individualistic  character  of  the  Teu- 
ton, but  we  have  no  assurance  that  this  Teuton 
habit  of  mind  is  the  result  of  anything  except  the 
history  and  the  philosophy  which  have  been  appro- 
priated in  comparatively  modern  times.  There 
are  two  ways  of  explaining  the  relative  passivity 
of  the  Slavic  mind.  One  is  the  fact  that  having 
been  for  so  long  a  subject  people  they  have  no  tradi- 
tions of  success.  Even  the  Russians  are  ruled  by 
a  bureaucracy  with  which  they  have  no  sympathy. 
The  other  is  that  the  Bohemians  and  the  others 
have  retained  the  democratic  characteristics  which 
are  common  to  the  Slavs.  There  has  been  some 
influence  from  both. 

One  peculiarity  of  Bohemians  both  in  America 
and  Bohemia  is  the  habit  of  criticising  any  of  their 
own  people  who  acquire  any  eminence  or  leader- 
ship in  any  field.  One  never  feels  free  to  speak 
with  enthusiasm  about  a  successful  Bohemian  lest 
he  invite  a  dash  of  cold  water.  There  seems  to 
be  universal  suspicion  of  the  motives  or  methods 
underlying  the  success.  If  a  leader  were  to  appear 
he  would  not  get  followers.  Such  a  habit  of  mind 
can  never  bring  anything  that  corresponds  to  im- 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       139 

perialistic  success.  Count  Liitzow  says  "  that  the 
evil  seed  of  hatred  and  distrust  sown  by  the  op- 
pressors in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies bears  evil  fruit  up  to  the  present  day.  Bo- 
hemian peasants  even  now  instinctively  distrust 
the  nobles  of  their  own  race  who  are  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  the  national  cause.  This  antagonism 
has  frequently  contributed  to  the  failure  of  the 
attempts  of  the  Bohemians  to  recover  their 
autonomy." 

There  is  a  great  difference  in  an  individual  or 
a  people  that  has  been  accustomed  to  accomplish- 
ment. The  attitude  in  Bohemia  has  been  that  of 
pessimistic  resignation.  Their  devotion  to  certain 
ideals  and  causes  is  magnificent,  but  the  inability 
to  organize  unanimously  is  indicated  by  the  eleven 
political  parties,  most  of  which  are  nationalistic 
and  none  of  which  has  the  active  co-operation  of 
the  masses.  They  follow  an  ideal  rather  than  a 
person,  and  the  symbol  of  the  ideal  is  always  a 
person  who  is  dead.  The  look  is  thus  backward 
rather  than  hopefully  forward.  Hus  is  the  great 
hero,  but  also  Comenius,  Palacky,  Havlicek,  and 
many  others  of  more  or  less  remoteness  are  the 
real  leaders,  and  the  reinstatement  of  national  self- 
direction  and  the  Bohemian  language  are  the  ideal 
objects. 

In  Bohemia  these  result  in  an  impracticalness 


140         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

which  magnifies  the  aesthetic  even  to  sentimental- 
ity. They  will  talk  as  though  art  were  the  end 
of  life.  For  many  the  aesthetic  life  consists  of 
sitting  in  restaurants  night  after  night  listening 
to  the  band  and  talking  over  their  beer.  In  spite 
of  this  industry  has  made  great  progress  in  Bo- 
hemia, and  when  they  come  to  this  country  they 
forget  their  objection  to  the  practical.  There  are 
probably  no  other  immigrants  in  America  who 
make  such  direct  efforts  to  own  their  own  homes 
as  the  Bohemians.  At  a  gathering  of  instructors 
of  the  University  of  Prague  to  organize  a  soci- 
ological institute,  I  was  asked  to  tell  some  of  the 
things  we  do  here.  T  tried  to  show  how  we  com- 
bine theory  with  practice  and  emphasized  my  own 
interest  which  is  theoretical,  but  they  unanimously 
said  that  our  methods  were  too  practical  to  be 
used  by  them. 

A  comparison  of  Poles  and  Bohemians  who  be- 
long to  the  same  race  shows  the  influence  of  cul- 
ture on  the  Bohemian.  In  1900  the  percentage 
of  illiterates  among  the  Bohemians  entering  the 
United  States  was  3.  and  of  Poles  31.6.  The 
Poles  are  as  strongly  the  Catholic  as  the  Bohe- 
mians are  Free-thinkers. 

In  Austria  there  are  fourteen  times  as  many 
cases  of  litigation  in  the  courts  among  the  Poles 
as  among  the  Bohemians.     A  Bohemian  in  Chi- 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       141 

cago  who  does  a  large  mail  order  business  among 
all  Slavs  says :  "  We  will  not  do  business  with  the 
Poles  at  all  because  they  will  not  pay.  To  the 
Serbians  we  send  everything  C.O.D.,  but  the 
Croatians,  Ruthenians,  and  the  rest  we  trust." 

The  family  life  is  an  important  sign  of  the 
morality  of  a  people,  and  we  find  among  the  Bo- 
hemians many  interesting  qualities.  The  follow- 
ing statement  in  "  Hull  House  Papers  "  derived 
from  a  study  of  Bohemians  says :  "  The  family 
life  is  affectionate,  and  it  is  the  prevailing  custom 
among  the  working  class  to  give  all  the  wages  to 
the  mother."  I  have  often  noticed  that  in  families 
the  income  is  naturally  estimated  as  the  total 
earnings  of  husband  and  children  and  that  the 
mother  gives  even  to  the  larger  children  who  are 
earning  good  wages  what  money  they  need,  and  al- 
ways with  cheerfulness  and  perfect  understanding. 
The  attachment  for  the  home  is  very  strong,  and 
they  take  pride  in  large  families  which  stick  to- 
gether. It  is  probable  that  ownership  of  the  home 
works  both  ways  in  this  matter,  having  the  home 
integrates  the  family  and  having  the  family  unity 
makes  it  desirable  to  own  a  home. 

In  sex  morality  we  must  remember  that  the 
Bohemians  are  European  and  not  American,  but 
on  the  streets  of  Prague  there  is  less  public  display 
of  immorality  than  in  Chicago.     Modesty  is  ob- 


142         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

served  as  an  important  virtue.  The  Bohemians, 
like  all  other  people,  have  prejudices  that  make  it 
difficult  for  them  to  see  clearly  values  not  meas- 
ured by  their  own  standard,  but  there  can  be  no 
question  but  that  their  standard  measures  up  well 
with  any  people  in  Europe.  The  important  thing 
to  civilization  is  whether  they  have  any  peculiar 
traits  of  mind  or  character  that  will  be  a  contribu- 
tion to  progress.  I  think  that  the  Bohemians  have 
this  in  common  with  the  other  Slavs  to  a  very 
marked  degree  and  in  a  direction  which  has 
hitherto  been  entirely  unrecognized,  and  this  is  the 
contribution  to  democracy. 

However  else  the  Germans  may  justify  the  pres- 
ent war,  they  sincerely  believe  that  on  their  suc- 
cess hangs  the  salvation  of  civilization  from  the 
barbarism  of  the  half-civilized  Slav.  Professors 
Eucken  and  Haeckel  have  voiced  a  widespread  in- 
dignation that  England  could  so  far  forget  her 
ideals  as  to  join  with  Russia  against  the  forces  of 
enlightenment.  Americans,  even  those  whose 
sympathies  are  hostile  to  Germans,  dread  success 
of  the  Russians.  The  socialists  who  are  opposed  to 
all  war  feel  convinced  that  Russia  is  a  menace  to 
all  their  plans.  In  fact  they  have  tacitly  admitted 
more  than  once  that  it  might  be  necessary  to  resist 
encroachments  of  Russia  by  force.  It  is  my  con- 
tention that  the  Slavic  people,  of  whom  the  Rus- 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER   143 

sians  are  the  largest  group,  have  more  to  con- 
tribute to  what  the  world  needs  next  than  any 
other  people,  and  that  all  that  is  best  in  socialism 
will  find  its  fruition  among  them  as  nowhere 
else. 

A  learned  Bohemian  friend,  in  reply  to  my  letter 
to  Bohemia,  in  which  I  spoke  of  the  political  prog- 
ress America  was  making,  said  that  it  could  but 
fill  the  heart  of  a  Bohemian  "  with  a  feeling  of  sad 
resignation  " ;  but  he  adds,  "  I  am  not  pessimistic 
enough  to  g^ve  up  all  hope  that  Providence  may 
have  yet  some  good  things  in  store  for  the  Slav. 
What  keeps  me  up  is  a  certain  hazy  impression 
that  human  development  may  sometime  be  in  want 
of  a  new  formula,  and  then  our  time  may  come.  I 
conceive  ourselves  under  the  sway  of  the  German 
watchword  which  spells  Force;  and  as  watch- 
words, like  everything  else  human,  come  and  go, 
perhaps  the  Slavs  may  sometime  be  called  on  to 
introduce  another,  which  I  should  like  to  see 
spelled  Charity." 

There  is  no  literature  in  the  world  which  has 
contributed  so  much  toward  such  a  sentiment  as 
that  of  the  Slavs.  Tolstoy  is  the  great  example, 
and  his  very  greatness  enabled  him  to  propose  a 
program  even  beyond  present  imagination,  but 
many  other  writers,  some  of  whom  have  been 
translated  and  some  not,  have  expressed  the  same 


144         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

ideal  of  needed  radical  reform.  We  must  not 
make-  the  mistake  of  thinking  these  writers  the 
originators  of  their  doctrines.  A  popular  prophet 
expresses  the  heart  of  the  people,  and  is  a  product 
of  their  ideals.  The  great  vogue  of  these  writers 
is  among  their  own  people.  The  government  of 
Russia  is  hostile  to  Tolstoy,  but  it  could  not  re- 
sist the  demands  of  the  students  that  an  heroic 
statue  of  this  radical  be  placed  in  the  great  govern- 
ment technical  school. 

The  ultimate  goal  of  society  is  democracy  and, 
strange  as  it  may  sound,  the  Slav  has  more  to 
contribute  to  this  end  than  anyone  else.  Russia, 
whose  name  is  the  synonym  of  despotism,  is  already 
in  reality  the  most  democratic  country  in  the  world. 
Democracy  means  the  opportunity  for  the  indi- 
vidual to  express  himself  to  the  utmost,  to  have 
his  expression  count  according  to  its  value,  and  if 
he  does  not  predominate  to  yield  gracefully  to 
the  expression  that  does  prevail.  This  habit  of 
mind  cannot  be  obtained  without  practice,  and  up 
to  the  present  time  in  the  world's  history  would 
not  have  been  as  efficient  as  the  leadership  of  indi- 
viduals who,  right  or  wrong,  obtained  results. 
Now  by  means  of  rapid  communication  and  a 
clearer  understanding  of  social  purposes  the 
method  of  democracy  can  be  applied  with  increas- 
ing efficiency.     Nurture  in  democratic  practice  is 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       145 

the  contribution  the  Slavs  will  make,  and  we  can- 
not realize  how  rich  this  will  be. 

The  despotism  of  Russia  is  no  m.ore  an  expres- 
sion of  the  real  Russian  people  than  Tammany 
Hall  is  an  expression  of  American  democracy,  and 
the  influence  of  both  institutions  on  national  char- 
acter has  been  practically  nothing.  Despotisms 
come  and  go,  but  the  traditions,  and  customs  of 
the  people  persist.  It  was  formerly  thought  that 
ideals  were  imposed  from  above,  but  now  we  are 
becoming  pretty  thoroughly  convinced  that  this  is 
not  the  case.  Imitation  is  horizontal  between 
people  of  the  same  class  and  not  vertical  between 
classes.  Polish  nobles  had  glass  windows  for 
years,  but  it  did  not  occur  to  the  peasants  to  have 
them  until  the  idea  was  brought  back  from  Amer- 
ica by  people  of  their  own  sort.  And  so  influences 
and  habits  may  go  on  for  centuries  upon  centuries 
without  being  affected  by  a  different  culture.  This 
fortunate  fact  has  enabled  us  to  preserve  what 
would  have  been  eliminated  by  the  contemporary 
values  and  customs  that  were  not  valuable  for 
the  time. 

Any  observant  traveler  entering  Russia,  after  he 
gets  over  the  first  fear  which  everyone  seems  to 
feel,  will  gradually  be  impressed  with  the  contrast 
to  the  Germans  and  Austrians  whom  he  has  just 
left.    There  he  was  never  addressed  without  his 


146         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

full  title  of  Herr  Professor,  Herr  Journalist,  or 
whatever  he  might  claim  for  his  distinction.  Here 
his  self-esteem  suffers  a  shock,  for,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country,  he  becomes  simply  "  Mister." 
This  universal  custom,  unimportant  in  itself,  is 
significant  of  a  national  habit  of  mind.  Men  in 
high  places,  as  heads  of  universities,  are  addressed 
by  their  colleagues  by  their  first  names.  In  the 
familiar  Russian  and  Polish  novel  we  find  nobles 
and  military  leaders  regularly  with  the  simple 
title  Pan  (Mr.),  which  is  a  term  of  respect  but  not 
of  distinction.  In  fact  the  attitude  of  the  noble 
and  the  peasant  toward  each  other  is  not  that  of 
superiority  and  servility,  but  as  elder  and  younger 
brother.  The  name  Little  Father  which  is  applied 
to  the  Czar  expresses  the  attitude  of  familiarity 
rather  than  of  awe.  Compare  this  with  the  wor- 
ship of  uniform  in  Germany,  where  a  policeman 
will  not  answer  your  question  unless  you  salute 
him  and  an  omitted  title  is  an  insult.  In  Petrograd 
during  student  riots  it  is  not  an  uncommon  thing 
for  the  students  to  kick  the  shins  of  the  police 
and  no  one  thinks  of  it  as  lese  majeste.  The  Rus- 
sian officer  and  soldier  are  more  nearly  comrades 
than  in  any  other  army  in  the  world. 

These  habits  have,  not  been  assumed  deliberately, 
but  are  the  product  of  underlying  institutions  out 
of  which  they  have  grown  naturally.     At  least 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       147 

fifty  million  people  in  Greater  Russia  and  Siberia 
live  in  Mirs  or  Communes.  In  these  from  time 
immemorial  they  have  practiced  a  degree  of  co- 
operation and  local  self-government  which  has 
never  been  equalled  by  deliberate  action  in  the 
most  enlightened  nations,  and  which  the  most 
despotic  government,  not  being  able  to  overthrow, 
has  recently  incorporated  into  its  governmental 
method.  In  the  Mir  the  land  which  is  owned  in 
common  is  regularly  reallotted  among  the  house- 
holders according  to  their  working  capacities  and 
needs.  The  Mir  elects  its  own  executive  and  may 
undertake  all  kinds  of  work  of  public  utility. 
Occasionally  a  woman  is  elected  as  executive,  and 
when  the  man  representing  the  household  is  away 
or  dead  the  woman  votes  and  takes  part  in  the 
assembly.  The  Mirs  are  united  into  larger  bodies 
with  similar  jurisdiction.  The  interesting  thing 
about  it  is  that  it  prevails  so  widely  and  among 
people  between  whom  there  has  not  been  the  slight- 
est possibility  of  intercommunication.  The  prom- 
ise of  the  Mir  is  not  communism,  but  a  habit  of 
mind  that  can  be  applied  in  more  general  and 
complex  affairs. 

Complaint  has  more  or  less  justly  been  made 
that  the  Slav  is  deficient  in  political  leadership  ex- 
cept in  the  smallest  units.  This  can  have  been 
true  in  the  past  while  holding  for  a  future  under 


148         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

quite  different  conditions.  Ease  of  communication 
has  enlarged  social  units  so  that  common  ideas 
may  result  in  common  action  over  wide  areas  as 
easily  as  in  a  common  room.  At  any  rate  the 
Slavs  have  succeeded  in  carrying  over  their  custom 
in  a  very  remarkable  manner.  The  artel,  which  is 
a  co-operative  productive  organization,  embraces 
most  diverse  enterprises  throughout  Russia,  and 
is  efficient  in  a  manner  only  dreamed  of  else- 
where. Tiffany's  finest  silver  enamel  is  mostly 
made  by  peasant  artels  in  Moscow.  In  one  small 
factory  where  most  of  the  men  were  away  get- 
ting in  their  harvests,  the  rest  were  making  beau- 
tiful inlaid  Easter  eggs,  and  a  special  order  of  ice 
cream  dishes  worth  a  hundred  dollars  apiece,  yet 
these  work-owners  were  so  untouched  by  modern 
customs  and  the  civilization  for  which  they  were 
producing  that  they  ate  their  dinner  from  a  com- 
mon dish  with  wooden  spoons.  The  porters  at 
the  railroad  stations  are  artels  governed  by  their 
own  rules  and  sharing  the  proceeds.  Many  banks 
and  large  enterprises  are  carried  on  in  the  same 
way.  One  of  the  largest  restaurants  in  Petrograd 
is  owned  by  the  men  who  do  the  work.  Fishing  is 
also  co-operative  in  its  methods.  Undertakings 
of  this  sort  could  not  possibly  be  carried  through 
so  generally  and  so  successfully  if  it  were  not  for 
the  great  background  of  experience  in  which  co- 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       149 

operation  and  acquiescence  to  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple is  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course. 

We  recognize  that  one  of  the  greatest  problems 
of  our  time  is  that  of  class  consciousness  between 
labor  and  capital,  and  economists  have  suggested 
co-operation  as  the  only  cure  for  the  deadlock  that 
threatens,  but  it  has  not  succeeded  where  tried. 
The  Russians  have  succeeded  without  being  con- 
scious that  they  were  doing  any  but  the  most 
natural  thing.  For  people  who  have  been  forbid- 
den so  much  that  is  thought  to  be  essential  to 
freedom,  it  is  nothing  short  of  remarkable,  that 
in  the  recent  years  of  industrial  progress  and  in- 
creasing complexity,  they  should  have  been  able 
to  adapt  their  democracy  to  fit  the  needs.  No- 
where are  labor  unions  formed  more  easily,  and 
while  meager  in  their  activities,  as  compared  to 
American  or  English,  they  have  coherence. 

The  church  has  developed  in  line  with  the 
characteristics  of  the  people.  Although  the  Or- 
thodox Church  is  magnificent  in  its  equipment,  and 
its  priests  most  richly  caparisoned,  yet  it  offers 
a  marked  contrast  to  the  aristocratic  system  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  The  Russian  most 
devoutly  takes  oflF  his  hat  in  passing  a  church  or 
holy  image,  but  he  keeps  it  on  when  passing  the 
priest,  and  he  kisses  the  priest  on  the  cheek  rather 
than  the  hand. 


160  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Among  other  Slavs  there  is  the  same  widespread 
prevalence  of  democratic  customs.  In  Serbia  the 
Mir  is  found  in  much  the  same  form  as  in  Russia, 
and  in  Poland  in  numerous  instances  the  Zadruga 
is  a  community  of  from  ten  to  sixty  or  more  liv- 
ing in  one  house  and  settling  important  matters  by 
vote.  The  head  of  the  Zadruga  is  generally  the 
oldest  man,  but  this  is  not  necessary,  and  not  in- 
frequently a  woman  is  head.  In  the  days  of  its 
independence  the  Polish  king  was  always  elected. 
The  suffrage  was  restricted  to  the  nobles,  and 
much  turbulence  prevailed  at  the  time  of  election, 
but  the  people  were  very  jealous  of  the  privilege. 

Of  all  the  Slavs  the  Bohemians  have  come  most 
under  German  influence  and  it  has  often  been  said 
that  the  assimilation  is  all  in  the  direction  of 
the  German.  In  many  characteristics  this  is  true, 
but  some  of  the  traditional  habits  of  mind  have 
clearly  been  preserved.  They  have  not  lost  these 
by  being  transferred  to  America  and  are  able  to 
carry  on  certain  forms  of  association  with  phe- 
nomenal success.  In  Chicago  they  have  104  Build- 
ing and  Loan  Associations  incorporated  under  the 
laws  of  Illinois.  All  are  prosperous,  only  one  has 
ever  failed.  Each  has  only  one  paid  officer,  a  sec- 
retary who  receives  from  five  to  ten  dollars  a 
week.  One  association  has  assets  of  $600,000, 
and  all  of  them  aggregate  about  $14,000,000  and 


THE  BOHEMIAN  CHARACTER       151 

20,000  members.  They  also  have  numerous 
benevolent  lodges  with  an  aggregate  membership 
of  over  100,000  in  the  United  States,  which  man- 
age insurance  systems  on  a  most  democratic  and 
safe  basis.  This  management  in  almost  all  cases 
includes  women  in  exact  equality.  The  same  thing 
is  true  of  the  Sokol  or  gymnastic  society  which  is 
organized  in  all  Slavic  countries.  In  the  numer- 
ous deliberative  meetings  of  Bohemians  that  I 
have  attended  the  women  have  shown  themselves 
quite  the  equal  of  the  men  in  debate. 

The  ultimate  democracy  must  include  universal 
suffrage,  which  we  see  has  its  roots  in  the  Slavic 
institutions.  The  Bohemians  have  the  arguments 
of  the  Germans  about  the  place  of  women,  but 
their  practice  is  more  subtly  democratic  than  they 
are  aware  of.  Until  it  was  confused  with  the 
prohibition  question  Bohemians  have  consistently 
advocated  equal  suffrage,  before  it  became  gener- 
ally popular.  The  Germans  have  as  consistently 
opposed  it. 

Whatever  the  outcome  of  the  war  the  Slavs  will 
inevitably  become  an  increasing  influence  in  the 
world's  progress  because  of  their  higher  birth 
rate  and  because  they  possess  the  richest  natural 
resources  in  the  world.  It  is  perhaps  an  occasion 
for  gratitude  that  in  the  midst  of  the  apparently 
insoluble    problems    about    the    exploitation    of 


152         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

natural  resources  and  labor  conflicts,  a  people 
that  has  been  nurturing  in  what  we  have  called 
barbarism  the  traits  most  desirable  for  dealing  with 
such  problems,  is  now  about  to  come  upon  the 
stage. 

To  be  sure,  most  of  the  Slavic  world  is  per- 
meated by  ignorance  and  dominated  by  bureau- 
cracy, but  education  is  only  a  generation  deep,  and 
political  reorganization  is  the  most  rapid  and  re- 
markable fact  of  our  era.  The  Bohemians  have 
shown  us  that  under  modern  conditions  these 
traits  are  not  lost.  Civilization  may  have  a  tempo- 
rary setback,  but  it  cannot  be  as  great  as  that  now 
arising  from  militarism,  but  in  the  end  the  Slav 
will  contribute  to  the  social  fabric  that  for  which 
it  is  now  peculiarly  ready.  In  the  words  of  an 
ancient  writer  we  may  say  that  the  stone  which 
the  builder  rejected  is  become  the  head  of  the 
corner. 


V 


PLACE  OF  BOHEMIA  IN  THE  CREATIVE 
ARTS 

By  Will  S.  Monroe,  Professor  State  Normal 
School,  Montclair,  N.  J.,  Author  of  "  Bo- 
hemia AND  THE  CeCHS,"  "  CoMENIUS  AND  THE 

Beginnings  of  Educational  Reform,"  etc.* 

IT  remains  to  call  attention  to  the  place  of 
Bohemia  in  letters,  art,  music,  education, 
social  and  religious  reform.  In  this  connec- 
tion it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  civilization  of 
the  Bohemians  is  distinctly  older  than  that  of  the 
German-Austrians,  and  that  it  developed  wholly 
independent  of  the  Teutonic  art  movements  in 
Germany  and  Austria. 

In  the  matter  of  literature,  Bohemia  occupies  a 
place  of  distinction  and  priority.  The  development 
of  the  vulgar  tongue  took  place  at  a  comparatively 
early  period.  Some  of  the  most  ancient  of  the 
poetic  documents  date  back  to  very  early  times. 
Indeed,  the  prose  literature  of  Bohemia,  after  the 

*  Professor  Monroe  has  made  numerous  pilgrimages  to  Bohemia 
and  his  knowledge  of  Bohemians  is  intimate  and  thorough.  He  is  a 
"  Bohemian  by  adoption." 

158 


164  BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Greek  and  Latin,  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  Europe. 
The  three  centuries  from  the  time  of  Charles  IV. 
to  the  outbreak  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  covers 
the  early  brilliant  period  in  literature.  Two  cen- 
turies of  intellectual  barrenness  followed  the  fatal 
battle  of  the  White  Mountain  and  the  usurpation 
of  the  Bohemian  Crown  by  the,  House  of  Hapsburg. 
The  ancient  constitution  of  the  kingdom  was  sup- 
pressed and  it  was  replaced  by  a  slightly  veiled 
system  of  Teutonic  absolutism.  The  lands  of  the 
Bohemian  nobles,  who  had  been  patrons  of  letters, 
were  confiscated  and  given  to  generals  in  the  Aus- 
trian army  and  to  Austrian  noblemen.  The  in- 
habitants of  the  flourishing  cities,  that  had  been 
strongholds  of  the  national  language  and  litera- 
ture, were  driven  into  exile  and  their  places  were 
taken  by  immigrants  of  non-Bohemian  birth. 
The  country  people  were  reduced  to  a  state  of  serf- 
dom and  attached  to  the  soil.  The  pillory,  the 
gallows,  and  the  whipping-post  were  the  sinister 
arguments  that  were  employed  to  obliterate  all 
traces  of  national  culture. 

Not  only  was  there  a  complete  arrest  in  the  re- 
markable literary  movement  that  intervened  be- 
tween the  Middle  Ages  and  the  beginning  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  but  most  of  the  literary  treas- 
ures of  the  previous  centuries  were  destroyed  by 
the    royal   edicts    of    the   reactionary   Hapsburg 


BOHEMIA  IN  THE  CREATIVE  ARTS     155 

rulers.  This  was  done  with  the  notion  that  the 
brilliant  period  of  Bohemian  existence  might  be 
blotted  out  and  forgotten.  The  book-destroyers 
that  were  turned  loose  in  the  land  burned  not  only 
all  historical  and  theological  works,  but  every 
form  of  literary  composition  that  might  suggest 
to  the  Bohemian  people  their  glorious  past.  One 
book-destroyer,  an  Austrian  priest,  boasted  with 
pride  that  he  had  burned  60,000  Bohemian  books. 
Many  works  were  carried  by  the  Bohemian  exiles 
to  Saxony,  Slovakland,  and  other  countries,  and 
preserved;  and  these,  together  with  others  that 
escaped  the  fury  of  pillaging  soldiers  during  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  constitute  the  fragments  out 
of  which  the  literary  history  before  the  seventeenth 
century  must  be  constructed.  But  these  fragments 
are  little  more  than  the  planks  of  a  ship  that  was 
wrecked  on  the  ocean  of  national  vicissitude. 

The  modern  Bohemian  literary  movement  dates 
back  only  one  hundred  years.  Joseph  Dobrovsky 
(1753-1829),  the  patriarch  of  Slavic  philology, 
initiated  the  literary  movement  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  few  other  Bohe- 
mian scholars  of  the  day — Jungmann,  Palacky, 
Kollar,  Safafik,  and  the  incomparable  publicist 
Charles  Havlicek — lent  their  services  to  the  re- 
habilitation of  a  national  language  that  was  long 
supposed  to  be  dead.     The  letters  of  Jungmann 


156         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

give  us  our  most  intimate  accounts  of  the  strug- 
gles of  himself  and  his  co-patriots  during  the  early 
day  of  the  modern  Bohemian  literary  renascence.* 
During  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
the  Austrian  Government  had  penalized  the  pub- 
lication of  books  in  the  Bohemian  language  and 
the  teaching  of  the  vernacular  in  the  schools  of 
the  kingdom.  But  in  spite  of  prohibitions  of  the 
Hapsburg  rulers,  the  vernacular  continued  to  be 
spoken  in  the  country  districts.  This  fact  facili- 
tated the  extraordinary  progress  made  in  the  fields 
of  poetry,  drama,  fiction,  criticism,  and  historical 
works  during  the  last  fourscore  years.  The 
satirical  writings  of  Jan  Neruda,  the  historical 
dramas  of  Alois  Jirasek,  the  rich  lyrical  poetry  of 
Jaroslav  Vrchlicky  (Frida),  the  bold  imaginative 
compositions  of  Julius  Zeyer,  the  modernist  poetry 
of  J.  S.  Machar,  the  great  national  epics  of 
Svatopluk  Cech,  the  historical  works  of  Francis 
Palacky,  and  the  political  and  sociological  writings 
of  Thomas  G.  Masaryk  have  made  notable  con- 
tributions to  the  literary  history  of  modern  Bo- 
hemia. When  one  recalls  the  dearth  of  literature 
from  Teutonic  writers  in  Austria  during  the  same 
period,  the  contrast  is  marked  indeed. 

*  The  story  is  too  long  to  be  told  in  this  connection;  pnd  the  in- 
terested reader  is  referred  to  "  History  of  Bohemian  Literature,"  by 
Count  Liitzow  (London  and  New  York,  1899),  and  "  Bohemia  and 
the  Cechs,"  by  Will  S.  Monroe   (Boston  and  London,   1910). 


BOHEMIA  IN  THE  CREATIVE  ARTS     157 

In  matters  of  art  also  Bohemia  was  early  in  the 
field.  The  Prague  school  of  painting  that  came 
into  prominence  during  the  reign  of  Charles  IV. 
(13 1 6-1 378)  took  favorable  rank  with  similar 
early  art  movements  in  Italy.  Painters,  sculptors, 
and  architects  trained  in  Bohemia  are  represented 
to-day  at  most  of  the  great  cities  in  Europe  where 
art  treasures  are  preserved.  The  zealous  and 
promising  artistic  movement  inaugurated  in  the 
country  by  the  followers  of  the  Prague  school, 
like  most  of  the  other  culture  movements  in  the 
kingdom,  was  well-nigh  extinguished  by  the  at- 
tempted Teutonization  of  the  country  by  the  Haps- 
burg  rulers  after  the  fatal  Bila  Hora. 

The  political  and  literary  activity  in  Bohemia 
during  the  opening  years  of  the  last  century  re- 
acted favorably  on  the  art  life  of  the  nation.  A 
society  of  the  fine  arts,  that  was  distinctly  Bohe- 
mian and  national  in  character,  was  organized  at 
Prague  in  1848;  and  this  was  followed  by  annual 
expositions  of  the  chief  productions  of  Bohemian 
and  foreign  artists.  As  an  immediate  result  of 
these  activities,  Bohemia  produced  an  astonish- 
ingly large  number  of  painters  who  took  high  rank 
in  their  art,  artists  of  the  rare  talent  of  Hellich, 
Manes,  Cermak,  Schwaiger,  Ales,  Brozik,  Mucha, 
Uprka.     In  sculpture,  too,  modern  Bohemia  has 


158         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

taken  a  place  of  distinction  in  the  works  of 
Myslbek,  Simek,  Seidan,  Sucharda,  and  Saloun. 

Bohemia's  music  is  probably  better  known 
throughout  the  civilized  world  than  any  other 
branch  of  her  creative  art.  This  is  largely  due  to 
the  universal  character  of  the  language  of  music 
and  to  the  eminence  of  her  great  tone  poets, 
Smetana  and  Dvorak.  Not  that  the  history  of 
music  in  the  country  begins  with  these  two  mod- 
ern composers,  but  because  they  spoke  in  such 
musical  forms  and  with  such  musical  force  that 
they  arrested  the  attention  of  the  world. 

We  read  in  the  chronicles  of  the  mediaeval  his- 
torians of  the  role  played  by  music  in  the  life  of 
the  Bohemian  people;  and  we  know  that  during 
the  Hussite  period  the  Bohemian  hymnology  at- 
tained a  degree  of  excellence  that  has  not  been 
surpassed  by  later  ages.  The  Bohemian  school  of 
music  of  to-day  takes  foremost  rank  among  the 
music  schools  of  modern  Europe. 

Bohemia's  position  in  the  matter  of  education 
is  likewise  distinctive.  Education  of  an  elemen- 
tary and  secondary  character  was  general  in  Bo- 
hemia several  centuries  in  advance  of  Austria  and 
Germany.  The  University  of  Prague  antedated 
similar  institutions  in  Germany  by  more  than 
half  a  century.  John  Amos  Komensky  (known  in 
America  and  England  by  the  Latinized  form  of  his 


BOHEMIA  IN  THE  CREATIVE  ARTS     159 

name,  Comenius)  was  a  Bohemian,  and  in  the 
judgment  of  competent  historians  of  education  he 
was  the  real  evangelist  of  modern  pedagogy.  Most 
of  the  school  systems  of  progressive  and  culti- 
vated European  peoples  are  based  directly  upon 
ideas  that  he  formulated. 

In  the  domain  of  religion  and  ethics,  Bohemia 
has  given  the  greatest  moral  reformer  of  the  past 
five  hundred  years  in  Jan  Hus,  the  forerunner  of 
Martin  Luther,  John  Calvin,  and  William  E. 
Channing.  And  in  Jerome  of  Prague,  the  con- 
temporary of  Hus,  she  produced  another  spiritual 
leader  of  great  power. 


VI 


THE  BOHEMIANS  AND  THE  SLAVIC 
REGENERATION 

By  Leo  Wiener,  Professor  of  Slavic  Lan- 
guages AND  Literatures  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity * 

BOHEMIA  is  the  westernmost  Slavic  coun- 
try and  its  fortunate  geographical  position 
between  the  West  and  the  East  of  Europe 
and  half-way  between  the  Slavs  of  the  Balkans 
and  those  of  the  North  has  in  past  ages  determined 
its  cultural  mission,  which  has  been  that  of  mediat- 
ing between  the  Latin  civilization  and  the  Poles 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  Byzantine  culture  and  the 
Russians  on  the  other.  Bohemia  is  the  keystone 
in  the  Slavic  arch.  Without  it  the  proto-history 
of  the  Eastern  nations  in  Europe  has  no  meaning 
and  no  coherency.  Unfortunately  even  the  most 
profound  scholars  have  as  yet  overlooked  the  im- 
portant role  which  Bohemia  has  played  in  for- 
warding that  Carolingian  civilization  which  the 

•  Professor  Wiener  is  a  distinguished  Slavic  scholar  whose  latest 
work,  "  An  Interpretation  of  the  Russian  People,"  has  just  been  pub- 
lished. 

160 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       161 

Visigoths,  expelled  by  the  Arabs  from  Spain  and 
settled  by  Charlemagne  in  southern  and  central 
France,  caused  to  radiate  to  the  whole  Germanic 
world  and,  through  Bavaria,  grafted  on  the  neigh- 
boring Cechs. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  first  Christian  activity 
in  Bohemia  proceeded  from  German  missionaries, 
but  it  is  only  a  recent  discovery  on  the  origin  of 
the  so-called  Gothic  Bible  which  has  revealed  to 
me  the  extraordinary  extent  of  the  Visigothic  liter- 
ary and  cultural  influences  upon  the  Bavarians  and 
the  Cechs.  In  the  light  of  this  discovery,  which 
I  am  now  subjecting  to  a  close  scrutiny,  it  appears 
that  a  tremendous  proportion  of  the  Slavic  vocabu- 
laries, from  Russia  to  Dalmatia,  from  Poland  to 
Bulgaria,  has  been  borrowed  from  the  religious 
works  of  the  Bohemians,  of  the  early  period,  now 
entirely  lost  to  science.  Bohemia  was  the  intel- 
lectual mistress  of  what  may  be  called  the  proto- 
Slavic  world.  Without  Bohemia,  the  greater  part 
of  the  Slavic  vocabularies  remains  irreducible  as 
regards  origins  and  distribution,  while  with  the 
proper  appreciation  of  this  country's  geographical 
factor  it  appears  at  once  that  far  from  standing 
aloof  from  the  Roman  civilization  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages,  the  Slavs  have  been  equal  par- 
ticipants with  the  Teutons  in  the  benefits  of  the 
Visigothic  culture,  which  shows  hardly  any  traces 


162         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

of  Teutonism,  but  a  curious  mixture  of  Western 
Roman,  Southern  French,  and  Arabic  elements. 
The  linguistically  strongest  of  these  is  the  Arabic, 
for  my  discovery  goes  to  show  that  the  so-called 
Gothic  Bible  was  written  only  about  the  year  800 
and  in  Southern  France. 

It  was  only  in  813  that  Charlemagne  introduced 
the  Germanic  languages  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
educated,  by  ordering  that  homilies  should  be  writ- 
ten in  the  native  dialects.  There  does  not  exist 
the  slightest  evidence  that,  with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  some  Gothic  tracts,  which  Bishop  Ulphilas 
is  said  to  have  written  in  the  fourth  century,  the 
Germans  used  their  native  dialects  for  any  literary 
purposes.  There  is  nothing  which  we  possess  in 
the  way  of  literary  documents  that  dates  back  of 
the  ninth  century,  and  there  is  precious  little  that 
can  with  certainty  be  ascribed  to  a  period  previous 
to  the  tenth  century.  Hence  it  appears  that  the 
literary  Teutonic  activity  is  very  little,  if  at  all, 
ahead  of  the  distinctively  Slavic  literary  activity, 
which,  so  far  as  we  know,  begins,  at  the  end  of  the 
ninth  century,  with  the  translation  of  the  Bible 
by  the  proto-apostles  of  the  Slavs,  Cyril  and 
Methodius,  for  the  Cechs  of  Bohemia. 

In  the  present  stage  of  philological  science  it 
is  impossible  to  ascertain  the  precise  dialect  in 
which  these  Bulgarian  monks  wrote,  though  the 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       163 

reasonable  assumption  is  that  it  was  that  of  their 
native  Thessalonica.  But  the  existence  of  a  dis- 
tinct Slavic  alphabet,  the  Glagolica,  of  which 
Cyril's  alphabet  is  but  a  simplification,  and  the 
existence  of  the  Freisingen  fragments  which,  al- 
though not  older  than  from  the  eleventh  century, 
are  written  in  a  variant  dialect  and  obviously  are 
based  on  documents  preceding  the  activity  of  the 
proto-apostles,  make  it  certain  that  Cyril  and 
Methodius  drew  on  an  older  literary  stock  or  com- 
posed in  a  language  which  was  already  permeated 
by  the  Christian  conceptions  which  were  the  com- 
mon possession  of  the  Cechs  in  Carolingian  times. 
This  is  proved  by  the  precious  Kiev  fragments,  of 
the  eleventh  century,  which  contain  the  most  primi- 
tive form  of  the  Old-Slavic  language  and,  at  the 
same  time,  use  distinctively  Cech  words  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  liturgy.  It  is,  therefore,  plausible 
that  whatever  dialect  was  later  chosen  by  Cyril  and 
Methodius  in  their  religious  activity  in  Moravia 
and  Bohemia,  it  was  based  on  the  vocabulary  which 
was  already  familiar  to  the  Cechs  from  their  previ- 
ous relations  with  the  German  missionaries. 

The  Slavic  liturgy  did  not  survive  long  in  Bo- 
hemia. After  the  death  of  Methodius  in  885  the 
Slavic  priests  were  banished  and  Moravia  and 
Bohemia  became  Roman  Catholic  once  more.  Only 
the  Abbey  of  Sazava  continued  to  use  the  Slavic 


164         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

liturgy  until  the  year  1096,  after  which  nothing 
more  is  heard  of  the  Slavic  Church.  Cyril  and 
Methodius,  who  had  come  to  Moravia  at  the  re- 
quest of  Prince  Rostislav,  had  in  867  been  accused 
by  the  German  missionaries  of  heresy,  which  ac- 
cusation, however.  Pope  Hadrian  found  to  be 
groundless.  But  the  Slavic  activity  could  not  be 
maintained  against  German  arrogance,  and,  as  it 
was  Bishop  Wiching  who  soon  after  the  death  of 
Methodius  banished  the  Slavic  liturgy  from  Bo- 
hemia, so  it  was  in  the  eleventh  century  again  Ger- 
man priests  who  destroyed  the  last  vestige  of  the 
incipient  Slavic  culture.  The  Slavic  liturgy  left 
the  country  to  become  permanently  associated  with 
the  Greek  Catholic  Church  in  Russia,  Serbia,  and 
Bulgaria.  What  might  have  formed  a  bond  be- 
tween the  various  Slavic  nations  had  been  sense- 
lessly destroyed  in  Bohemia  by  the  machinations 
of  the  German  clergy. 

Again  it  was  Bohemia  which  was  the  first  coun- 
try, not  only  among  the  Slavs,  but  in  the  whole 
of  Europe,  to  carry  high  the  banner  of  religious 
freedom.  The  Germans  boast  of  the  contribu- 
tion to  freedom  of  thought  by  their  Luther,  and 
they  constantly  forget  that  a  century  before  him 
Hus  had  prepared  the  ground  for  that  religious 
dissent  which  was  voiced  by  Luther  and  his 
contemporaries.     In  the  fourteenth  century  Bohe- 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       165 

mians  were  fond  of  attending  foreign  universities, 
especially  those  of  Paris  and  Oxford.  In  the 
latter  place  they  became  acquainted  with  Wiclif 
and,  returning  home,  they  translated  his  works  and 
laid  the  foundation  for  that  remarkable  activity 
which  is  known  as  Husitism.  Matej  of  Janov, 
who  had  studied  at  Paris,  had  even  before  Hus 
put  himself  in  opposition  to  Popery,  but  it  was 
Hus's  particular  desert  to  have  roused  the  Cech 
national  feeling.  Hus  was  opposed  not  only  to 
the  corruptions  that  had  crept  into  the  Church, 
but  also  to  the  anti-nationalistic  activities  of  the 
Germans,  and  so  headed  the  movement  which 
had  for  its  purpose  a  Cech  regeneration. 
Cech  became  the  language  of  intercourse,  and  a 
large  number  of  translations  of  the  Bible  into 
Cech  was  made  between  1400  and  1430,  the  most 
remarkable  being  that  written  by  a  Taborite  mil- 
ler's wife. 

Hus  became  the  first  rector  of  the  Cech  Prague 
University,  after  the  German  students  had  with- 
drawn to  the  newly  formed  University  of  Leipsic. 
Bohemia  was  rent  by  disorder,  not  only  from  with- 
out, but  also  within  the  Husitic  movement  itself. 
Husitism  stood  not  only  for  religious  freedom, 
but  also  for  democracy,  and  for  a  time  the  Husites 
got  along  without  a  king.  The  most  advanced  of 
these  democratic  protagonists  of  that  time  was 


166         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Chelcicky,  who  dreamed  of  a  millennium,  not  un- 
like the  one  represented  in  literature  at  the  pres- 
ent time  by  Tolstoy.  His  chief  desert  lies  in  hav- 
ing, by  his  writings,  promoted  the  formation  of 
the  Church  of  Bohemian  Brethren.  The  idea  of 
Slavic  nationality  was  not  confined  to  Bohemia 
alone.  The  growth  of  a  similar  national  feeling  in 
Poland  may  be  discerned  as  the  result  of  this  Cech 
renascence,  and  the  Southern  Slavs,  too,  were  di- 
rectly and  indirectly  influenced  by  the  nationalism 
in  the  North.  Indeed,  the  golden  age  of  Polish 
and  Serbian  literature  is  but  a  century  older  than 
the  rebirth  of  the  Slavic  idea  in  Bohemia. 

Again  it  was  a  Bohemian  who,  at  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  became  the  founder  of  Slavic 
philology  and  the  new  Slavic  literary  movements 
throughout  Europe.  Jagic  begins  his  stupendous 
"  Encyclopedia  of  Slavic  Philology  "  with  a  defini- 
tion of  Slavic  philology,  after  which  he  says: 
"  Only  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  did  the 
whole  volume  of  Slavic  philology,  as  an  independ- 
ent science,  assume  shape.  The  chief  desert  in  this 
matter  belongs  to  Joseph  Dobrovsky.  He  laid 
the  foundation  for  a  scientific  grammar  of  the 
Slavic  languages,  centering  it  on  its  most  ancient 
type,  the  Church-Slavic.  He  was  the  first  to  at- 
tempt a  determination  of  the  degree  of  relation- 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       167 

ship  between  the  separate  Slavic  dialects  by  means 
of  a  scientific  classification.  It  was  he  who  intro- 
duced into  the  circle  of  scientific  interests  the  ques- 
tions from  the  literary  and  cultural  history  of  the 
Slavs,  for  example,  the  question  of  the  educational 
activity  of  Cyril  and  Methodius,  and  finally  also 
from  social  history,  such  as  archeological  and 
ethnographical  questions.  .  .  .  The  critical  spirit 
of  Dobrovsky  with  his  broad  views  has  created 
Slavic  philology.  He  is  the  father  of  this  science." 
In  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  it 
looked  as  though  the  Slavic  languages  were  doomed 
to  perdition.  Poland  lost  its  independence  and 
was  parceled  out  among  three  nations;  Bohemia 
had  become  a  mere  dependency  of  the  Hapsburg 
Empire;  Serbia  and  Bulgaria  were  under  the  Turk- 
ish yoke  and  did  not  even  dream  of  a  separate 
political  existence.  Nor  did  matters  stand  better  in 
the  national  literatures.  The  Polish  and  Bohemian 
literatures  led  a  vegetative  existence;  the  Serbians 
and  Croatians  had  forgotten  of  their  literary 
past;  the  Bulgarians  had  not  yet  discovered  the 
fact  that  they  spoke  an  intelligible  language  worthy 
of  literary  refinement.  Russia  was  still  struggling 
with  the  establishment  of  a  linguistic  norm  out  of 
the  ecclesiastic  Slavic  and  the  spoken  idiom,  while 
its  literature  was  but  a  feeble  reflex  of  French 
pseudo-classicism.    Nowhere  was  there  the  slight- 


168         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

est  conviction  that  the  homely  native  dialects  had 
a  right  to  exist  by  the  side  of  the  more  fortunate 
German,  while  of  the  past  of  the  Slavic  languages 
but  the  faintest  surmises  had  been  uttered  by  men 
untutored  in  historical  and  philological  lore.  But 
if  it  was  the  preponderant  influence  of  German 
culture  that  put  the  Slavic  into  the  shade,  it  was 
also  the  result  of  German  philosophy  which  gave 
the  .Slavic  national  idea  a  new  lease  of  life. 

German  literature  had  itself  been  decadent  for 
some  time,  and  was  obliged  to  yield  to  the  more 
universal  French  culture  which  ruled  even  at  the 
Prussian  court.  The  revolt  against  French  pseudo- 
classicism  and  encyclopedism  was,  however,  voiced 
by  a  few  German  writers  who  began  to  look  in  the 
native  elements  of  the  intellectual  life  for  a  basis 
for  a  native  poetry  and  belles  lettres  in  general. 
Thus  arose  the  German  Romanticism,  which  be- 
lieved that  in  the  creations  of  the  popular  mind 
could  be  found  truer,  more  natural  sentiments  for 
literary  expression  than  in  the  artificial  productions 
of  a  select  upper  class.  Possibly  the  chief  activity 
in  the  direction  of  a  simpler  literature  was  de- 
veloped by  the  brothers  Grimm,  who,  by  their  col- 
lections of  fairy  tales  and  mythological  lore,  laid 
the  foundation  for  a  nationalistic  movement  which 
was  soon  to  sweep  over  Europe.  Not  only  did  Ger- 
man literature  successfully  establish  itself  against 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       169 

the  French  fashion,  but  all  the  smaller  nations, 
who  had  almost  forgotten  of  their  historical  exist- 
ence, began  to  discover  themselves.  If  the  popular 
creation  was  truer  and  more  important  than  the 
traditional  literatures  of  the  Grseco-Roman  type, 
then  Serbia  and  Bohemia  and  Russia,  which  had 
preserved  an  enormous  mass  of  oral  literature  in 
out-of-the-way  places,  harked  back  to  important 
pasts  and  should  develop  from  within.  The  na- 
tionalistic idea  began  to  grow  out  of  proportion 
to  the  folklore  which  could  conveniently  be  mus- 
tered in  proof  of  native  superiority,  and  where 
there  was  such  a  disproportion  it  became  necessary, 
so  unscrupulous  nationalists  thought,  to  manufac- 
ture such  material.  Everybody  knows  the  huge 
literary  forgery  of  Macpherson,  whose  Ossianic 
poetry  none  the  less  had  a  great  influence  upon  sus- 
ceptible minds,  even  in  the  East.  Another  such 
forgery  was  that  of  the  Bohemian  Hanka,  whose 
Queen's  Court  Manuscript  still  finds  overzealous 
defenders  among  a  certain  class  of  unwise  na- 
tionalists. It  is  not  the  forgery  of  Hanka  which 
has  had  most  widespread  influences  upon  the  dis- 
semination of  the  nationalistic  idea  among  the 
Slavs,  but  the  legitimate  and  scholarly  activity  of 
the  father  of  Slavic  philology,  Joseph  Dobrovsky. 
Having  studied  Eastern  languages  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Prague,  he  had  hoped  to  become  a  mis- 


170         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

sionary  in  India,  but  he  soon  abandoned  this  in- 
tention and  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  Slavic 
antiquity.  In  1779  he  made  his  appearance  in 
criticism  with  a  periodical  which  set  itself  the  task 
of  telling  "  the  truth,  the  naked,  unvarnished 
truth  "  without  regard  for  persons.  He  at  once 
attracted  attention  by  his  sharp,  critical  acumen. 
His  main  interest  lay  in  the  purification  of  the 
Cech  language  and  the  formation  of  a  literary 
norm.  In  1792  his  desire  to  reconstruct  the  Slavic 
past  took  him  on  a  long  journey  to  the  libraries  of 
Sweden  and  Russia,  and  even  to  the  Caucasus, 
where  he  had  expected  to  find  some  indications  of  a 
Cech  origin.  In  the  same  year  appeared  his  "  His- 
tory of  the  Bohemian  Language  and  Literature," 
in  which  he  described  the  struggles  of  the  Cech 
language  against  the  German  and  Latin  from  the 
time  of  Hus  until  his  day,  and  showed  what  rela- 
tion it  bore  to  the  other  Slavic  languages.  The 
effect  of  this  work  upon  the  nationalistic  feeling 
was  very  great.  Especially  his  grammar  of  the 
Cech  language  which  he  published  in  1808  formed 
the  basis  for  all  Slavic  grammars  written  in  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Dobrovsky 
was  a  voluminous  writer,  and  his  scientific  cor- 
respondence, lately  edited  by  Jagic,  contains  an 
immense  amount  of  material  which  throws  a  light 
upon  the  history  of  the  Slavic  renascence. 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       171 

Dobrovsky  soon  gained  many  disciples  in  the 
Slavic  world.  The  Russians  Vostokov,  Kalay- 
dovich,  Stroev,  and  many  others,  the  Slovenes 
Kopitar  and  Vodnik  were  his  followers,  and  the 
great  Slavists  Safafik  and  Miklosich  carried  on 
the  work  of  philology  after  him.  He  enjoyed 
the  friendship  of  German  scholars  and  poets, 
Goethe,  Jacob  Grimm,  Pertz,  and  others.  Goethe 
wrote  of  him :  "  Abbe  Joseph  Dobrovsky,  the  past 
master  of  critical  historical  science  in  Bohemia, 
this  rare  man  who  long  before  had  followed  the 
general  study  of  the  Slavic  languages  and  his- 
tories with  genial  industry  and  Herodotic  travels, 
rejoiced  in  reducing  his  gains  to  the  study  of  the 
Bohemian  people  and  country,  and  thus  united 
with  the  greatest  glory  in  science  the  rare  reputa- 
tion of  a  popular  name.  The  master  is  visible  in 
whatever  he  attempts.  He  everywhere  grasps  his 
subject  and  deftly  unites  the  fragments  into  one 
whole." 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  strong  nationalistic 
movement  which  developed  in  Bohemia  was  en- 
tirely beneficial,  for  it  not  only  led  to  unhealthy, 
ecstatic  moods  in  the  Bohemian  literature  of  the 
first  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but  even  to 
a  series  of  literary  falsifications  which  still  form 
the  subject  of  discussion  among  laymen.  But  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Bohemian  national- 


173         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

ism  was  a  reflex  of  the  nascent  German  nationalism 
and  was  fanned  to  exaggerated  manifestations  by 
the  obscurant  absolutism  of  Emperor  Francis  I. 
Indeed,  the  Cech  nationalism  was  to  a  great  extent 
encouraged  by  the  Austrian  Government,  as  a  pro- 
tective measure  against  Napoleonic  sympathies. 
The  work  begun  by  Dobrovsky  was  carried  into 
the  field  of  literature  by  Jungmann,  who  was  not 
satisfied  with  creating  a  native  literary  language 
for  the  lower  classes  only,  which  seemed  sufficient 
to  Dobrovsky,  but  set  about  to  create  a  literary 
norm  for  the  whole  of  the  Bohemian  people. 
Jungmann  was  especially  successful  in  translating 
from  foreign  languages,  and  the  Slovaks  Safafik 
and  Kollar,  and  the  Moravian  Palacky,  not  only 
imitated  the  activity  of  their  teacher  Jungmann,  but 
became  even  more  important  in  the  dissemination 
of  the  Slavic  idea,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

In  the  twenties  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
fame  of  these  ardent  Slavists  had  spread  to  all 
the  Slavic  countries,  and  in  Russia  the  question 
of  founding  a  chair  of  Slavic  philology,  to  be  oc- 
cupied by  some  Bohemian  scholar,  was  seriously 
considered.  In  1830  the  Russian  Government 
offered  a  chair  of  Slavic  philology  to  Safafik,  but 
nothing  came  of  it,  chiefly  through  the  machina- 
tions of  the  forger  Hanka,  who  sided  with  the 
Russian    autocracy,    while    Safafik  publicly    ex- 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       173 

pressed  himself  in  favor  of  the  Poles  in  the  revo- 
lution which  had  just  broken  out  in  Russia.  But 
Safafik  continued  to  exert  a  great  influence  on 
Slavic  science  in  Russia  through  his  friend 
Pogodin,  who  never  gave  up  the  hope  that  Safafik 
might  be  called  to  a  chair  in  Petrograd.  When 
this  hope  could  not  be  materialized,  the  young 
Slavists  then  studying  in  Russia,  Bodyanski, 
Sreznevski  and  others,  made  it  their  business  to 
study  for  a  time  in  Austria,  more  especially,  to 
meet  Safafik  and  learn  something  from  personal 
contact  with  him.  Indeed,  the  main  activity  of 
Bodyanski  consisted  in  translating  into  Russian 
the  works  of  Safafik  and  other  Bohemian  Slavists. 
Similarly  Sreznevski,  in  his  inaugural  lecture  at 
the  university,  pointed  out  the  fact  that  there  had 
existed  no  interest  in  Slavic  studies  in  Russia  until 
such  had  been  created  by  the  Bohemian  and  Ser- 
bian scholars.  As  Bodyanski  stood  in  relation  to 
the  Russian  Slavophiles,  it  is  certain  that  the 
Slavophile  movement  in  Russia  received  some  of 
its  ideas  directly  or  indirectly  from  the  Bohe- 
mian nationalists. 

From  the  humble  beginnings  in  the  first  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  Bohemian  literature  has 
developed  in  a  remarkable  manner,  borrowing 
what  is  best  in  all  literatures,  and  to  a  consider- 
able extent  falling  under  the  influence  of  the  great 


174         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Russian  writers.  It  is  eminently  cosmopolitan  in 
compass  and  subject-matter,  but  at  the  same  time 
has  preserved  many  national  characteristics,  which 
would  well  repay  the  interest  of  an  English  read- 
ing public,  if  it  could  be  induced  to  read  transla- 
tions of  this  almost  unknown  literature.  Its 
poetry  is  especially  attractive  and  varied,  and  the 
poets  have  reveled  in  the  discussion  of  those  social 
problems  which  elsewhere  have  been  relegated  to 
the  field  of  prose. 

Whatever  the  interest  of  the  outsider  may  be  in 
Bohemian  literature,  it  deserves  the  highest  atten- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  Slavs,  who  owe  their  very 
regeneration  to  the  labors  of  the  Bohemian 
scholars  a  century  ago.  If,  in  addition,  we  con- 
sider what  Bohemia  did  for  freedom  of  re- 
ligious thought  a  hundred  years  before  the  days 
of  Luther,  and  still  more,  the  great  obligation 
under  which  the  Greek  Catholic  Church  is  to  Bo- 
hemia for  its  very  ecclesiastic  language  and  na- 
tional alphabets,  the  sympathies  of  the  world 
should  particularly  be  enlisted  for  this  country  in 
the  possible  future  reconstruction  of  the  Austrian 
Empire.  Slavs  and  non-Slavs  should  unite  on  this 
point  without  discussion,  and  even  the  Germans 
should  look  favorably  on  the  restoration  of  Bo- 
hemia to  its  former  freedom  and  glory,  if  they  are 
not   blinded    by    selfishness   and   useless   conceit. 


THE  SLAVIC  REGENERATION       176 

Bohemia  has  in  the  Middle  Ages  been  the  mediator 
between  the  West  and  the  East,  the  South  and  the 
North,  and  it  will  for  a  long  time  remain  the 
mediator  between  the  best  German  thought  and  the 
growing  Slavic  civilization,  if  the  Germans  do  not, 
as  in  the  past,  rouse  the  Slavic  antipathies.  Of  all 
the  Slavs,  the  Bohemians  understood  the  German 
ideas  best,  and  Dobrovsky  and  other  Bohemian 
Slavists  promoted  the  Slavic  idea  by  means  of 
the  German  language.  That,  of  course,  can  never 
happen  again,  for  the  nationalist  life  is  there 
permanently  established.  But  there  is  no  reason 
for  racial  antagonism  in  a  country  where  Ger- 
mans and  Slavs  have  lived  together  for  centuries. 


ADDENDA 

THE  BOHEMIANS  AS   IMMIGRANTS 

By  Emily  Greene  Balch,  Professor  of  Eco- 
nomics AT  Wellesley  College  * 

IN  some  cities,  as  for  instance  Cedar  Rapids, 
and  in  some  states,  as  for  instance  Nebraska, 
Bohemians  are  a  large  enough  element  in  the 
population  to  be  fairly  well  known;  but  they  are 
not  so  numerous  in  the  United  States  as  a  whole, 
as  to  be  clearly  present  to  the  minds  of  most  people. 
New  Yorkers  may  have  seen  with  interest  the 
National  Hall  of  the  Bohemians,  Clevelanders 
may  be  familiar  with  the  Schauffler  Missionary 
Training  School,  persons  familiar  with  industrial 
conditions  in  Chicago  may  be  aware  of  the  great 
Bohemian  colony  there,  the  largest  in  the  country  ; 
but  in  general  if  people  know  anything  about  Bo- 
hemians they  probably  "  know  a  great  many  things 
that  aren't  so,"  misled  by  the  fact  that  the  French 
word  for  Gipsies  is  Bohemians,  much  as  our  word 
for  the  American  aborigines  is  Indian. 

Yet  from  the  colonial  period  individual  Bohe- 

•  Author  of  "  Our  Slavic  Fellow-Citizens."     Miss  Balch  studied  the 
Slav  in  the  United  States  and  "  at  the  source,"  in  Europe. 

176 


BOHEMIANS  AS  IMMIGRANTS       177 

mians  have  come  to  this  country,  and  in  1906,  the 
latest  year  for  which  I  have  estimates,  the  Bo- 
hemian group  was  put  at  a  round  half-million. 

Some  of  these  early  settlers  are  picturesque  and 
not  unimportant  figures  like  Herman  and  Phillipse, 
but  it  was  not  till  the  disturbed  period  of  1848  that 
Bohemians  came  to  this  country  in  appreciable 
numbers.  At  this  time  there  was  a  triple  ferment 
in  Bohemia:  first,  a  desire  for  political  independ- 
ence; second,  a  resurrection  of  national  self -con- 
sciousness symbolized  by  the  revival  of  the 
Bohemian  language,  the  use  of  which  among  cul- 
tivated people  had  been  abandoned  for  German; 
and  third,  a  spirit  of  religious  questioning  and 
vehement  challenge  of  current  Christianity,  largely 
due  to  reaction  against  the  influence  of  a  corrupt 
Austrian  clericalism. 

Another  possible  influence  was  the  discovery  of 
gold  in  California  in  1849,  which  is  said  to  have 
brought  Bohemian  gold-seekers  and  to  have  stimu- 
lated the  activity  of  ship  agents.  The  census  of 
1850  mentions  87  natives  of  Austria  (out  of  946 
in  the  United  States)  as  then  in  California;  these 
were  probably  Bohemians.  Throughout  the  fifties 
and  early  sixties  there  was  a  pretty  steady  outflow 
from  Bohemia,  most  of  it  directed  to  the  United 
States.  This  early  emigration  was  a  movement  of 
settlers,  whole  families  going  together. 


178         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

With  1867  came  a  fresh  impulse  to  emigration. 
Besides  the  newly  granted  right  to  emigrate  freely, 
the  disastrous  war  with  Prussia  in  1866  gave  added 
reasons  for  going,  while  in  the  United  States  the 
Civil  War  was  over  and  everything  invited  the 
settler. 

The  earliest  colony  of  Bohemians  was  in  St. 
Louis,  where  in  1854  they  had  already  established 
a  Catholic  church,  and  this  city  has  always  re- 
mained an  influential  Bohemian  centre. 

More  important,  however,  was  the  movement  to 
the  states  further  West — the  largest  numbers  set- 
tling in  Wisconsin,  later  Iowa,  later  Nebraska 
and  the  two  Dakotas,  though  a  considerable  settle- 
ment also  grew  up  in  Cleveland.  In  general,  how- 
ever, in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  land  was 
already  too  dear  for  the  newcomers,  and  they  con- 
tinually settled  further  west  as  the  years  went  on. 
In  the  early  days  they  either  went  overland  from 
the  Eastern  ports  or  up  the  Mississippi  River. 
One  of  the  reasons  for  so  many  Bohemians  as  well 
as  Germans,  Scandinavians,  Poles,  and  Belgians 
being  attracted  to  Wisconsin  was  undoubtedly  the 
attitude  of  that  state  toward  immigration.  A  fact 
that  is  easily  forgotten  in  the  present  state  of  feeling 
in  regard  to  immigration  is  the  eager  and  official 
solicitation  of  immigrants  that  was  carried  on  for 
years  by  various  states.     Wisconsin,  like  many 


BOHEMIANS  AS  IMMIGRANTS       179 

other  states,  appointed  a  Commissioner  of  Immi- 
gration to  stimulate  the  inflow.  In  1852  the  first 
man  to  fill  this  office  reported  to  the  Governor 
that  he  had  been  in  New  York  distributing  pam- 
phlets in  English,  German,  Norwegian,  and  Dutch, 
describing  the  resources  of  the  state. 

After  four  years  this  state  canvass  for  immi- 
grants was  suspended  for  a  time,  but  in  1864  the 
Wisconsin  Legislature  memorialized  Congress  for 
the  passage  of  national  laws  to  encourage  foreign 
immigration  on  the  ground  that  labor  was  scarce, 
owing  to  the  war,  and  that  wages  had  more  than 
doubled.  Whether  or  not  as  a  consequence  of 
this  request.  Congress  did  in  the  same  year  pass 
an  act  to  encourage  immigration,  which,  however, 
was  repealed  in  March,  1868. 

Again^  in  1879,  Wisconsin  established  a  State 
Board  of  Immigration  to  increase  and  stimulate 
immigration,  with  authority  to  disseminate  infor- 
mation. The  official  circulars  mentioned  as  in- 
ducements the  following  points:  climate,  rich 
lands  at  a  nominal  price,  free  schools  and  a  free 
university,  equality  before  the  law,  religious  lib- 
erty, no  imprisonment  for  debt,  and  liberal  ex- 
emption from  seizure  by  a  creditor,  suffrage  and 
the  right  to  be  elected  to  any  office  but  that  of 
governor  or  lieutenant-governor  on  one  year's 
residence,  whether  a  citizen  or  not  (intention  to 


180         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

become  one  having  been  declared) ;  and  full  eligi- 
bility to  office  for  all  actual  citizens.  "  There  is 
never  an  election  in  the  state,"  one  circular  con- 
tinues, "  that  does  not  put  some,  and  often  very 
many,  foreign-born  citizens  into  office.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  foreigner  in  Wisconsin, 
save  in  the  mere  accident  of  birthplace;  for  men 
coming  here  and  entering  into  the  active  duties  of 
life  identify  themselves  with  the  state  and  her 
interests,  and  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
American."  We  are  told  "  The  language  above 
used  is,  except  in  rhetoric,  identical  "  with  that  in 
an  edition  of  1884. 

Besides  this  direct  encouragement  by  the  state 
"  a  similar  canvass  was  maintained  by  counties  and 
land  companies,  and  at  a  later  stage  by  railway 
companies,  some  of  them  sending  agents  to  travel 
in  Europe."  Of  such  solicitation  at  the  very  be- 
ginning of  Bohemian  immigration  I  found  tradi- 
tion still  mindful  in  the  old  country.  Thus 
immigrants  have  felt  themselves  directly  and  offi- 
cially invited  and  urged  to  come,  and  it  is  not 
surprising  that  one  often  finds  them  aggrieved 
and  hurt  at  the  tone  of  too  many  current  refer- 
ences making  foreigners  synonymous  with  every- 
thing that  is  unwelcome. 

Many  of  the  Bohemians  were  pioneers  in  the 
unbroken  wilderness,  and  a  very  large  part  were 


BOHEMIANS  AS  IMMIGRANTS       181 

farmers.  A  large  proportion,  however,  had  trades, 
and  this  is  characteristic  of  Bohemian  immigra- 
tion in  general.  The  common  estimate  is  that  one- 
half  of  the  Bohemians  in  the  country  are  living 
in  country  places,  occupied  either  with  farming 
or  with  some  one  of  the  various  employments  in- 
cident to  rural  life,  from  shoemaking  to  keeping 
store  or  acting  as  notary  public.  If  the  compari- 
son be  extended  to  all  groups  of  foreign  parentage, 
Bohemia  shows  a  larger  proportion  engaged  in 
agriculture  than  any  foreign  countries  except 
Switzerland,  Denmark,  and  Norway,  surpassing 
even  Germany  and  Sweden.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  Italy  has  a  very  low  rank  in  this  regard ; 
even  Poland  and  Russia  surpass  her,  lowered  as 
their  place  is  by  the  large  non-agricultural  Jewish 
element,  and  only  Hungary  is  below  her. 

As  to  the  quality  of  Slavic  farming,  one  natu- 
rally hears  different  reports.  I  suspect  that  the 
American  often  thinks  the  Pole  or  Bohemian  a 
poor  farmer  because  he  works  on  a  different  plan, 
while  the  foreigner,  used  to  small,  intensive  farm- 
ing, thinks  Yankees  slovenly  and  wasteful.  Espe- 
cially when  he  takes  up  old,  worn-out  farm  lands, 
he  has  small  respect  for  the  methods  of  his  prede- 
cessor, who,  he  says,  **  robbed  the  soil.'* 

The  American  business  agent  of  a  Bohemian 


182         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

farming  paper,  already  quoted,  could  not  say 
enough  in  praise  of  the  Bohemian  farmers.  They 
farmed  better  than  the  Americans.  They  invested 
freely  in  farm  machinery.  Nothing  was  too  good 
or  too  big  for  them.  In  the  eastern  half  of  Butler 
County,  Nebraska,  there  were  seventeen  big 
steam  threshing  outfits  among  Bohemians — some- 
thing to  which  you  could  find  nothing  parallel  in 
the  same  area  anywhere  in  the  United  States.  The 
Bohemian  paper  of  which  he  was  agent  had  seven 
times  more  advertising  of  farm  implements 
than  any  other  paper  in  the  United  States,  he 
said. 

While  the  above  statements  are  those  of  an  in- 
terested party,  all  the  available  evidence  points  the 
same  way.  It  would  seem,  moreover,  as  though 
in  certain  lines,  new  to  us  and  familiar  in  Europe, 
the  immigrant  should  be  able  to  supply  very  valu- 
able skill.  This  seems  to  be  especially  the  case 
in  the  sugar-beet  industry,  in  which  the  labor  of 
Bohemians,  who  understand  beet  culture  well,  is 
much  sought. 

Of  Bohemian  women  at  work,  nearly  a  quarter 
were  in  1900  servants  and  waitresses,  and  more 
than  another  quarter  workers  at  tailoring  or  in  to- 
bacco. This  corresponds  to  the  fact  that  many 
Bohemians  in  the  cities  are  engaged  in  the  two 
latter  branches;  many  too  are  mechanics  or  trades- 


BOHEMIANS  AS  IMMIGRANTS   183 

people,  often  carrying  on  a  small  business  of  their 
own. 

The  Bohemians,  like  other  Slavic  groups  in  this 
country,  are  much  given  to  organizing  into  socie- 
ties. Many  of  their  associations  are  small  local 
affairs  of  the  most  various  sorts.  In  a  New  York 
Bohemian  paper  I  found  a  list  of  95  local  societies 
among  this  group  of  perhaps  45,000  people. 
Many  were  mere  "  pleasure  clubs,"  to  use  the  cur- 
rent East  Side  phrase,  while  many  were  lodges  of 
various  of  their  great  "  national "  societies.  Of 
these  large  national  societies  the  most  remarkable 
is  the  society  founded  by  the  Bohemians  at  St. 
Louis  in  1854,  under  the  name  of  the  Bohemian- 
Slavonic  Benevolent  Society,  or  as  it  is  commonly 
called,  by  the  initials  of  this  name  in  the  vernacu- 
lar, the  C.  S.  P.  S.  In  the  religious  controversies 
which  soon  divided  American  Bohemians  into  two 
camps,  this  came  to  represent  the  free-thinking, 
anti-Catholic  side.  It  numbers  about  25,000 
members. 

The  Sokols,  which  correspond  to  the  German 
"  Turnerbunds "  or  gymnastic  societies,  are  as 
popular  and  widespread  as  they  are  desirable. 
They  give  opportunity  for  exercise  dignified  by 
a  sense  of  the  relation  between  good  physical  con- 
dition and  readiness  for  service  to  one's  country. 
Women  and  children,  as  well  as  the  men,  have 


184.         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

their  own  divisions,  classes,  and  uniforms,  and  the 
Sokol  exhibitions  are  important  and  very  pretty 
social  events.  In  Prague,  in  the  summer  of  1906, 
the  Bohemian  Sokols  had  an  anniversary  interna- 
tional meet,  at  which  the  American  societies  were 
also  represented,  and  performed  evolutions,  liter- 
ally in  their  thousands,  in  the  open  air. 

Theatricals,  whether  given  in  some  local  hall  or 
in  a  regular  theatre  hired  for  the  occasion,  are,  as 
in  Europe,  a  favorite  employment  for  Sunday 
afternoons  or  evenings.  Classic  pieces,  both  liter- 
ary and  operatic,  are  much  enjoyed;  for  instance, 
among  the  Bohemians,  Smetana's  opera,  "  The 
Bartered  Bride,"  is  often  given.  On  the  other 
hand,  one  will  see  a  very  simple  spontaneous  little 
exhibition  given  with  the  greatest  abandon  and 
delight  by  a  club  of  hard-worked,  elderly  women, 
whose  triumphs  are  hugely  enjoyed  by  their  fami- 
lies and  neighbors.  It  is  an  especial  pleasure  to 
them  to  reproduce  the  pretty  costumes  of  their 
old-world  youth.  Worthy  of  especial  mention  are 
the  club  called  Snaha  (Endeavor),  of  Bohemian 
professional  women  in  Chicago,  and  the  clubs  or- 
ganized for  reading  and  study  among  Socialists 
of  different  nationalities. 

There  are  numerous  Bohemian  papers  and 
periodicals,  including  the  Bohemian  "  Hospodaf  " 
("  Farmer  ")  of  Omaha  and  the  "  2enske  Listy  " 


BOHEMIANS  AS  IMMIGRANTS       185 

of  Chicago,  the  latter  being  an  organ  of  a  woman's 
society,  printed  as  well  as  edited  by  women.  It 
is  not  devoted  to  ''beauty  lessons"  and  "house- 
hold hints,"  but  to  efforts  toward  woman's  suffrage 
and  the  "  uplifting  of  the  mental  attitude  of  work- 
ing-women." Its  6,000  subscribers  include  dis- 
tinguished Bohemians  all  over  the  country,  men 
as  well  as  women. 

In  religion  the  Roman  Catholics  claim  a  large 
number  of  Bohemians,  but  there  is  a  substantial 
Protestant  minority;  outside  the  church  fold  is  the 
numerous  and  very  interesting  group  of  Free- 
Thinkers. 

The  Bohemians  are  among  the  most  literate  of 
our  immigrants.  Taking  the  data  for  1900,  which 
I  happen  to  have  worked  out,  we  find  that  of  im- 
migrants of  all  nationalities  of  fourteen  years 
and  over,  those  not  able  to  both  read  and  write 
were  24.2  per  cent. ;  among  the  Germans  5.8  per 
cent. ;  among  the  Bohemians  and  Moravians  only 
3.0  per  cent. ;  among  Scandinavians,  under  0.8 
per  cent.  Certainly  to  supply  only  about  one-half 
as  many  illiterates  per  hundred  as  the  Germans  is 
a  notable  record. 

All  of  this  is  quite  borne  out  by  the  impression 
one  gets  of  Bohemians  both  in  the  United  States 
and  in  Bohemia.  In  development  and  conditions 
they  rank  with  the  immigrant  from  northwestern 


186         BOHEMIANS  AND  SLOVAKS 

Europe.  The  struggle  with  the  Germans  is  in  a 
sense  the  master-thread  in  their  whole  history,  and 
this  contact,  even  though  inimical,  has  meant  inter- 
penetration  and  rapprochement.  No  other  Slavic 
nationality  is  more  self-conscious  and  patriotic,  not 
to  say  chauvinistic,  in  its  national  feeling,  and  at 
the  same  time  none  begins  to  be  so  permeated  with 
general  European  culture  and  so  advanced  eco- 
nomically. 

As  to  character,  if  it  is  impossible  to  indict  a 
whole  people,  so  is  it  impossible  to  draw  a  portrait 
of  such  a  collective  group.  Nevertheless,  no  one 
can  doubt  that  one  characteristic  of  the  country- 
men of  Smetana  and  Dvorak  is  their  noble  gift 
for  music.  Their  sense  of  color,  too,  is  very 
marked,  and  they,  beyond  all  people  I  know,  love 
the  dance.  Yet  with  all  their  "  gemiithlich  "  and 
temperamental  qualities  I  find  them  reserved, 
delicate,  shy,  intensely  family-loving,  cherishing 
privacy. 

The  Bohemians  are  a  people  of  high  conscien- 
tiousness, and  by  nature  loyal.  In  the  Civil  War 
their  anti-slavery  feeling  and  their  devotion  to 
their  new  country  both  were  shown,  and  the  first 
company  that  went  from  Chicago  to  fight  for  the 
Union  is  said  to  have  been  a  Lincoln  Rifle  Com- 
pany that  some  young  men  of  that  nationality  had 
organized  in  i860.    The  dominating  feature  in  the 


BOHEMIANS  AS  IMMIGRANTS       187 

great  Bohemian  National  Cemetery  in  Chicago  is 
the  soldiers'  monument,  just  such  a  monument  as 
stands  on  every  village  common  in  New  England; 
and  perhaps  nothing  so  much  as  this  visible  sign  of 
blood  shed  in  the  same  cause  bridges  the  difference 
of  national  feeling. 

They  are  interested  in  ideas  for  their  own  sake, 
as  are  the  Latin  peoples,  and  especially  in  ques- 
tions of  religion.  The  older  people  love  their  past, 
their  language,  their  old  home,  yet  they  cannot 
hand  on  these  intefests  in  their  pristine  intensity 
to  the  younger  people,  absorbed  in  the  life  about 
them,  dropping  their  Bohemian  speech  and  ways 
and  gradually,  only  gradually,  completing  the 
transition  to  the  New  World  and  its  ways. 

Note. — I  have  to  thank  the  publishers  of  my  book,  Our 
Slavic  Fellow-Citisens,  for  permission  to  borrow  here  and 
there  from  its  pages. 


PRINTED  IX   THE  UNITED   STATES  OF  AMERICA 


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POLAND 

The  Knight  Among  Nations 

By  LOUIS  L  VAN  NORMAN 

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The  Martyr  Who  Blazed  the  Way  to 
Religious  Freedom 

THE  LIFE 

=  OF== 

JOHN  HUS 

The  Martyr  of  Bohemia 
By  W.  N,  SCHWARZE,  Ph.D. 

Illustrated,  16mo,  Cloth,  Net  75  cts. 


C 


Every  Protestant  this  year  should  own  and  read 
the  wonderful  story  of  John  Hus. 

500  YEARS  of  LIBERTY 


C Religious  freedom  owes  much  to  the  sacrifice  of 
this  great  reformer,  whose  life  is  told  in  stirring 
fashion,  suffused  throughout  with  the  spirit  and  ge- 
nius of  this  fearless  Protestant  champion. 

W.  H.  ROBERTS,  D.D^  SUted  Clerk  of  the 
General  Assembly,  says:  "I  commend  it  heartily  to 
ministers  and  laymen.  The  life  and  teachings  of  John  Hus 
are  dealt  with  in  an  admirable  manner." 

"A  book  attractive  as  well  as  accurate,  and  popular 
although  concise :  and,  with  careful  examination  of  the 
most  reliable  Hus  literature,  he  has  sketched  the  ante- 
cedents of  the  great  Bohemian,  his  university  career,  and 
his  work  as  preacher,  teacher,  writer  and  reformer,  with 
sympathy  and  discrimination,  in  a  clear,  vigorous  and 
pleasing  style.  The  book  will  be  very  useful  in  missionary 
study  classes ;  its  informing  value  is  greatly  increased  by 
many  half-tone  illustrations ;  and  its  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  pages  give  the  reader  a  far  more  intimate  and  satisfy- 
ing acquaintance  with  this  '  true  nobleman  of  God,"  than 
volumes  twice  or  thrice  its  size  and  expense." 

— Chtistian  Intelligencer. 


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